Day 17  2001.12.13

This page is huge.
Many many pictures.
I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.

We headed up to Sedona - "Red Rock Country". The morining is spent on the highway, but then we get on smaller roads. As we come around a curve, we see we've arrived in beautiful butte country.
That's the butte they call the Teapot.

As we arrive at the near edge of  Sedona, we find sprawl. The same plaza you'd find anywhere in the US.  But at least it has a nice bacdrop.

Who could resist pictures like these?

We stop for lunch before we go exploring. Sedona has the distinction of the "World's Only Teal Arches!".
Congratulations on making those zoning restrictions stick!

After lunch, we get a Red Rock Pass so we can park along the roads around here. Now, I thought the "forests" in New Mexico were short; wait 'til you see where you park here.

The red rock is what's left after the pale Cocconino Sandstone wore away from on top. You can see this north of the town.
Farther north is the Cocconino National Forest which goes all the way north to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

We decided to take a hike to a natural arch in one of the many canyons. On our way there, we find a road that hasn't quite managed to evolve.

 There were several lovely pictures here, but to be kind to modem users, I have left them out.

There is a lovely outcrop from the wall of Fay Canyon that looks like Minas Tirith.

After about a half hour walk, the ground gets steep and Annemarie drops out. Dwyn & I make it the rest of the way and see the arch.
It's impressive.
See Dwyn in the arch?

There she is!

It really is an arch, rather than a cave. As you get up to it, you see that there is no ceiling back there.
This was taken from one side (up a ways) toward the other. The exposure was ramped way up so you could see the texture of the rock. Mostly I like this camera, but sometimes I wish it could be more like my eyes.

Just down the canyon a short way  is some graphic proof that this was not always a desert.
The sides of the canyon are filled with potholes and loops caused by eddying water as the canyon was cut by a river. Dwyn waves through one and you can see another big one below.

There be dragons here.

Near the pockmarked cliff face is a flat space with rock for a floor. People have built some small benches with local stone, and also many cairns. There are many cairns around here.

Sedona is a New Age Mecca. There are more spas, spiritualists and healers here than you can shake a stick at.  There is also a healthy population of UFO watchers. It's probably #3 after Roswell and Pine Bush...

As we descend back to the center of the canyon, we hear some tourists coming. We'd met several hikers and nature lovers already, but these were tourists. There was a ringleader who was loud and draped with cameras.  We heard him about a quarter mile before we saw him.

As he got nearer, he hailed us as though "he hadn't seen a white man in months".  Sort of a "we travelers have to stick together against the savages" type of greeting. Not getting much in response from us, he found a new subject. "What are those rings in the rocks?" he asked me. (People often tell me I look like a geologist...or is that a forest ranger?)
"That's the where the UFOs touched down," I replied with a straight face. Well, he annoyed me.

Another cairn along the path back, built by someone with an artistic eye.

Well, time to leave Sedona and move on the Flagstaff for the night. We're going to the Grand Canyon tomorrow and it's a 2 hour drive from Flagstaff. And back. (It really is in the middle of nowhere. I expected much more built up around it.)

We leave via Oak Canyon, which is cut into the side of the plateau that extends up to the Grand Canyon. The Cocconino Sandstone is one of the top layers of that plateau.

Less than half way up we come across Wilson Canyon, a "small" side canyon. Here's the bridge we crossed over it:
The canyon is named after a settler who was dragged off up the canyon by a bear. Neato.

A look down into the canyon.

It was a pleasant 70°F in Sedona. By the time we reach the top of Oak Canyon, it's 28°F and there's six inches of snow on the ground.

On we go to Flagstaff to sleep and get ready for our jaunt to the Grand Canyon. In the motel room, I run into something alarming.
Eeek!
 

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