“. . . lonely water, won’t you let us wander / Let us hold each other” – James Bay
After two weeks in the desert without a drop of water in sight (except for one thunderstorm and yesterday’s stop at Montezuma Well) we finally found a relative abundance of it. Despite some confusion on our part about what time the West Fork Trail opened, we arrived at nearly the perfect time, shortly after eight. That gave us plenty of time to enjoy a few cups of coffee, but still be on the trail early enough to beat the majority of the crowds that would descend on the hiking trails of the Sedona area by later in the morning.
The hike itself was stunning. Several signs informed us that we would be crossing Oak Creek at least 26 times. We were also in a shaded canyon for nearly the entire 8 miles and 4.5 hours we were there making for a very pleasant morning. Although Ellie was most vocal about her affection for this particular journey I think it will be near the top of all of our lists of best hikes so far on #RTXVIII. In my opinion the best part of the hike was the mile or so we went beyond the end of the marked trail. At the point the broad canyon narrowed to a slot canyon and we continued upstream, mostly in the water, until we decided that it was deeper than we wanted to hike in.
This part of the canyon was incredibly reminiscent of The Narrows hike at Zion, but without the crowds. In fact other than Montezuma’s Castle, Arizona has generally been a less crowded and just as pretty version of Utah. We did run into the crowds we’d been warned would be hiking with us in the last mile or so on the way out, but by then we were tired enough that we were able to just walk past them without them detracting from the experience we’d had further upstream.
On the way back to Sedona we passed the parking area for Slide Rock, another natural attraction that I’d heard we should consider. I’m glad we didn’t the parking lot was completely full and people were parking miles away and walking on a narrow mountain road to get there. The town of Sedona is similarly overrun. We were discussing other places to compare it to and the best I could come up with is the Wisconsin Dells. In short, while the area is beautiful the town isn’t and I don’t see us returning anytime soon.
We spent one last afternoon lounging by the pool, this will probably be the last one for a while. The girls made some new friends in the pool and we got to know their parents at wine hour, definitely or last one of those for quite a while. The next few days are pretty booked with NPS sites, longer hikes, camping, and two National Park lodges.