Sedona, AZ and Cedar Mesa and Moab, Utah

Cheryl had been to Sedona about 25 years ago and wanted to see it again. Sedona, at 4400 feet, is situated in Red Rock Country of the Colorado Plateau. The transition from the desert to the mountains is abrupt and the roads up to Prescott, and then to Sedona twist and turn gaining altitude in huge steps. We would often find ourselves looking out the window into deep canyons many hundreds of feet below. I don't find that kind of driving scary, but one does have to keep ones eyes on the road. Alternate Route 89A into Sedona has a 40 foot length limit on trucks yet there seems to be no limit on those big class A campers that you always meet on a corner. Whew! We twisted our way through Jerome, a small town hugging the mountain and we were in Sedona. Sedona is beautiful, but like so many beautiful places today it is a victim of it's own success. There has been much development since Cheryl's earlier visit, with McMansions covering many of the bluffs and cliffsides. You have to look a bit to find "Old" Sedona, but find it we did and had a delicious Mexican dinner at Oaxuaca (pr. Wa-Ha-Ca). We camped at the Cave Creek Campground in the Coconino National Forest, which is located about 12 miles outside of town in Oak Creek Canyon. With only two days here we wanted to do a long hike on our full day and did the West Fork of Oak Creek trail into the Red Rock Wilderness. The trial wound through the Canyon, below magnificent red rock walls, for 3 miles to end (well, not actually end, just stop us) when the river and the canyon become the same width. We did take our hiking boots off and wade up the river (Cold...like the coast of Maine) for a couple of hundred yards before it became too cold and too deep to go on. We saw an endangered "Triangle Head Garter Snake" swimming up the creek. We seem to be on a roll with rare animals. Like North Conway, in our home state of NH, Sedona has had way too much growth in way too short a time, but like North Conway has, it will someday find it's roots again and, I'm sure, be an awesome place. We chatted with the owner of a fine bike shop in town and he said the political and social climate is changing from the old and established to the young and restless and this is a good thing. I guess we will give it a couple of years, then come back for a longer stay, Our days were sunny with blue skies and mid 80s, not too shabby.We then headed North through Flagstaff and passed through but did not stop at Monument Valley. We met Whazoo and Lynn on the road just as we were getting ready to enter Utah south of the Cedar Mesa Area north of Mexican Hat. We passed the "Goosenecks of the San Juan River" and headed up to Cedar Mesa. Getting on Cedar Mesa entails a large increase in altitude. In this area that is done on the famed Moki Dugway. The Moki Dugway is a gravel road with innumerable switchbacks rising 1100 feet in 3 miles. Utah recommends vehicles no longer than 28 feet...Good thing we're only 24 feet, eh?. After a quick stop at Muley point to ascertain that it was much too windy for camping we drove down a BLM road to find a campsite and prepare for our first hike to "The Citadel". The Citadel sits under a huge rock (We're talking basketball court sized rock here) at the end of a land bridge. We accessed the ruin from the opposite side of the canyon so we could see it, and where we needed to go, before hiking down into the canyon and out to the ruin. Ruin is a misnomer. While the Citadel is not a spectacular site overall, it is almost perfectly preserved and an excellent example of the workmanship of these ancient people. The builders of the Citadel are referred to as the Basket Maker people and are the antecedents of the current day Hopi in Arizona and Zuni in New Mexico. The land bridge scared the dickens out of me from afar, but turned out to be quite a bit wider than I thought. We moved to new campsite that evening where I taught my friend Whazoo how to make a proper S'More. The next day we hiked to a different ruin. The Moon House Ruin is much more extensive than the Citadel and encompasses 3 separate sites and over 40 rooms. Several styles of construction spanning several centuries are in evidence at the ruins. When you go places with our friend Whazoo, you really go placesand our last trip was up onto Comb Ridge via a really nice road that Whazoo had found along the ridge.We visited the Tower House Ruins on Comb ridge. Comb Ridge is a long escarpment running North South and pierced by East West canyons it's entire length. Many of these canyons contain ruins.As usual the Camera Crew (Whazoo and Cheryl) took several million pictures.

2 days of scrambling along cliff edges and climbing in and out of steep canyons left us ready for an early dinner and no campfire.We parted ways with Whazoo and Lynn the next morning and headed for Moab,Utah, farther north in the red rock country.Moab is a fun town, but busy and when we got there pretty much all the BLM campsites on the Colorado River were taken so we headed out Onion Creek road and found a site. We spent one day getting laundry done and the truck serviced then spent a day hiking at Dead Horse state park. This Utah State Park is located on a high mesa overlooking the Colorado River. The access to the mesa known as Dead Horse Point is only about 150 feet wide and cowboys used to drive mustangs out on the mesa to round them up. Reportedly some forgetful bunch left a few fenced in out on the mesa without water, thus the name. Sad name for a spectacular place.
The following day we took a hike out "Negro Bill Canyon" to see Morning Glory Bridge. Negro Bill was William Granstaff a cowboy cattleman and one of the first non natives in the Moab area. Granstaff had a ranch around 1870 in this canyon. The Natural bridge, reputed to be the sixth largest in the US is about 3 miles up the canyon and well worth the hike. This is a beautiful canyon and lots of flowers were in bloomOn our last day in Moab we hiked to Fisher Towers, a local red rock landmark. The towers are a series of isolated monoliths that are spectacular in both size and color.
We left Moab to head to Ogden, Utah for the weekend to watch our grandson Jack compete in a Judo meet.
We are such proud grandparents.

Next we drive the loneliest road in the country (route 50 through western Utah and Nevada) to visit Great Basin National Park.