Scenic Sedona
Trails Report of Run from April 2005
Report by Chuck Seeger
Trails Coordinator, Run Leader Geared 4 Fun 4x4 Club
As Trails Coordinator for the Geared 4 Fun club I wanted to inject some new life into the position and the club, so I asked everyone what they wanted in a run – Good trails that are challenging but not Sledgehammer tough, Scenic beauty, something different – how ‘bout someplace with after wheeling activities…. Hmmm??? Well Sedona fits all of those and more!
With the rainy winter I was worried in February and March – would it rain all over our trip? Luckily the weather pattern changed and we had beautiful warm weather (at least until Sunday’s drive home).
Thursday morning we all met up on the I-15 by Chase’s house – Sorry Chase! From there we started our drive to Sedona – thankfully that was uneventful! We arrived right at 6 o’clock as expected and got to our condo then grabbed a beer – later we met for dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant. There – because of the full moon that weekend they were having the Wesak festival
– something to do with the vortexes around Sedona that the new age folks are into – when one singer was done (beautiful voice) and the announcer came up to welcome everyone to the “Sedona We Suck Festival” (that’s what I heard) we all guffawed and laughed loudly – which caused several new age’rs and hippies to look at us funny – how did we know it was Wesak? I guess its like laughing in church – but it was funny as heck to us…. Still funny now!
book said it was a great trail. The trail starts with a small gate keeper obstacle then after a short dirt road gets to some fun slick rock – here we let several “Pink Jeep” tours go by us as we played on the rocks and posed for pictures – there were several times where the Jeep tour folks were spending more time watching us play than the red rock scenery! The trail took us to Submarine rock – a huge sub like rock then out to Chicken Rock - I’m not sure if it was chicken shaped but it did drop off precipitously soFriday morning we all met up at Telaquepaque (an art gallery like outdoor mall) and headed to our first
trail “Broken Arrow” this is the trail that all the Jeep Tour companies take and our guide maybe that’s where the chicken part came from. Here I got a friendly mountain biker to take a Well, the book says you can do this trail in 2 hours – and picture of everyone together with our Jeeps and the red rock scenery in the background. We then headed to some fun obstacles including a blind climb straight up the slick rock and then over to a fun crack that Russ went up. From there it was over to “the steps” a steep downhill with step like rocks and a well worn path down the hill – for those with decent tires and gears it was fun. I think it was a little nerve racking for Bogdan and his family with the Cherokee – but he made it with some good spotting by Russ. JD couldn’t go slow enough in his big Blazer and kind of bounced down the steps but we all made it no problem! you could have if you just drove the trail – but it was so beautiful we had to stop
and check out the scenery several times – so now it was 1 pm.
We blew off Soldier’s pass trail and headed to the Oak Creek Homestead trail – this was an easier trail that took us down to Oak Creek where we had lunch…the fun was on the way out while Russ and I were waiting for everyone else to catch up at this old stage coach era dam, Russ asked if I wanted to go play in the rocks – I mentioned something about it getting late – but go ahead and I’ll spot you! Well that was enough and Russ skillfully maneuvered his Jeep though the rock garden and up through a “V” notch in the wall of this “dam”. When he made it through the rocks and to the “V” notch that was only the start of the fun – the first angle was bumper to 2 feet below the top – JD had him back up and come from an angle to get the drivers side tire up – but then the front bumper on the other side was making solid contact with the wall. Back it up a bit…stack a few rocks and come again – ok now we got the front up, but by the time the back tires touch the wall there just isn’t enough traction to climb out…. Someone said for me to get the winch out but Russ wouldn’t hear that… he backed up – not too much – and we stacked rocks to get the tires up 8” or so after a few tries and more rock stacking he climbed right up and Russ was all smiles… of course we again had a crowd this time a couple of rental Jeeps (one guy bragging that if he had “his jeep from home” he’d try that too – yeah whatever!
We headed back to town and had a nice BBQ at our condos - grilled steaks, Salmon and lots of side dishes – mmm too much to eat!
Saturday dawned clear and beautiful – I thought there was supposed to be a storm coming? We headed to Jerome, an old Copper mining town clinging to the side of Mingus Mountain, the town became a Ghost town when the copper ran out in the 1950’s but has come back as an art gallery – tourist town. Bogdan asked that we take the dirt route to town up from Cottonwood, this was a bumpy shelf road but wasn’t challenging – the trail shook and rattled several bolts loose on JD’s Blazer and we had to pull over and tighten them up. We decided to blow off any further wheeling for the day as we had promised the girls they could shop and explore the towns… we walked around Jerome and several people got an ice cream from this old New Yorker guy who just about talked their ears off ! Jerome was a neat old town with lots of history.
We headed back to Sedona, did some shopping and went to dinner, that night the storm hit and boy did it rain hard! Around 6:45 a.m. the last hard rain fell and the sky started to clear – or so we thought… as we headed out of town… after one last fix of JD’s Blazer…it started to pour and even pea sized hail – after Russ’s big motor home went through a puddle (it was a big one) all the warning lights came on so he pulled over to check it out – Joe and I went up a side street to wait and caught an awesome view of the red rocks getting rained on – this caused several waterfalls to flow – very cool! Once we go to I-17 the rain stopped and the sun came out – I can’t wait to go back there, we didn’t get a chance to do several trail that looked very cool in the book – I guess that’s a good thing it keeps you wanting more!
Report by Chuck Seeger
Trails Coordinator, Run Leader Geared 4 Fun 4x4 Club
As Trails Coordinator for the Geared 4 Fun club I wanted to inject some new life into the position and the club, so I asked everyone what they wanted in a run – Good trails that are challenging but not Sledgehammer tough, Scenic beauty, something different – how ‘bout someplace with after wheeling activities…. Hmmm??? Well Sedona fits all of those and more!
With the rainy winter I was worried in February and March – would it rain all over our trip? Luckily the weather pattern changed and we had beautiful warm weather (at least until Sunday’s drive home).
Thursday morning we all met up on the I-15 by Chase’s house – Sorry Chase! From there we started our drive to Sedona – thankfully that was uneventful! We arrived right at 6 o’clock as expected and got to our condo then grabbed a beer – later we met for dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant. There – because of the full moon that weekend they were having the Wesak festival
– something to do with the vortexes around Sedona that the new age folks are into – when one singer was done (beautiful voice) and the announcer came up to welcome everyone to the “Sedona We Suck Festival” (that’s what I heard) we all guffawed and laughed loudly – which caused several new age’rs and hippies to look at us funny – how did we know it was Wesak? I guess its like laughing in church – but it was funny as heck to us…. Still funny now!
book said it was a great trail. The trail starts with a small gate keeper obstacle then after a short dirt road gets to some fun slick rock – here we let several “Pink Jeep” tours go by us as we played on the rocks and posed for pictures – there were several times where the Jeep tour folks were spending more time watching us play than the red rock scenery! The trail took us to Submarine rock – a huge sub like rock then out to Chicken Rock - I’m not sure if it was chicken shaped but it did drop off precipitously soFriday morning we all met up at Telaquepaque (an art gallery like outdoor mall) and headed to our first
trail “Broken Arrow” this is the trail that all the Jeep Tour companies take and our guide maybe that’s where the chicken part came from. Here I got a friendly mountain biker to take a Well, the book says you can do this trail in 2 hours – and picture of everyone together with our Jeeps and the red rock scenery in the background. We then headed to some fun obstacles including a blind climb straight up the slick rock and then over to a fun crack that Russ went up. From there it was over to “the steps” a steep downhill with step like rocks and a well worn path down the hill – for those with decent tires and gears it was fun. I think it was a little nerve racking for Bogdan and his family with the Cherokee – but he made it with some good spotting by Russ. JD couldn’t go slow enough in his big Blazer and kind of bounced down the steps but we all made it no problem! you could have if you just drove the trail – but it was so beautiful we had to stop
and check out the scenery several times – so now it was 1 pm.
We blew off Soldier’s pass trail and headed to the Oak Creek Homestead trail – this was an easier trail that took us down to Oak Creek where we had lunch…the fun was on the way out while Russ and I were waiting for everyone else to catch up at this old stage coach era dam, Russ asked if I wanted to go play in the rocks – I mentioned something about it getting late – but go ahead and I’ll spot you! Well that was enough and Russ skillfully maneuvered his Jeep though the rock garden and up through a “V” notch in the wall of this “dam”. When he made it through the rocks and to the “V” notch that was only the start of the fun – the first angle was bumper to 2 feet below the top – JD had him back up and come from an angle to get the drivers side tire up – but then the front bumper on the other side was making solid contact with the wall. Back it up a bit…stack a few rocks and come again – ok now we got the front up, but by the time the back tires touch the wall there just isn’t enough traction to climb out…. Someone said for me to get the winch out but Russ wouldn’t hear that… he backed up – not too much – and we stacked rocks to get the tires up 8” or so after a few tries and more rock stacking he climbed right up and Russ was all smiles… of course we again had a crowd this time a couple of rental Jeeps (one guy bragging that if he had “his jeep from home” he’d try that too – yeah whatever!
We headed back to town and had a nice BBQ at our condos - grilled steaks, Salmon and lots of side dishes – mmm too much to eat!
Saturday dawned clear and beautiful – I thought there was supposed to be a storm coming? We headed to Jerome, an old Copper mining town clinging to the side of Mingus Mountain, the town became a Ghost town when the copper ran out in the 1950’s but has come back as an art gallery – tourist town. Bogdan asked that we take the dirt route to town up from Cottonwood, this was a bumpy shelf road but wasn’t challenging – the trail shook and rattled several bolts loose on JD’s Blazer and we had to pull over and tighten them up. We decided to blow off any further wheeling for the day as we had promised the girls they could shop and explore the towns… we walked around Jerome and several people got an ice cream from this old New Yorker guy who just about talked their ears off ! Jerome was a neat old town with lots of history.
We headed back to Sedona, did some shopping and went to dinner, that night the storm hit and boy did it rain hard! Around 6:45 a.m. the last hard rain fell and the sky started to clear – or so we thought… as we headed out of town… after one last fix of JD’s Blazer…it started to pour and even pea sized hail – after Russ’s big motor home went through a puddle (it was a big one) all the warning lights came on so he pulled over to check it out – Joe and I went up a side street to wait and caught an awesome view of the red rocks getting rained on – this caused several waterfalls to flow – very cool! Once we go to I-17 the rain stopped and the sun came out – I can’t wait to go back there, we didn’t get a chance to do several trail that looked very cool in the book – I guess that’s a good thing it keeps you wanting more!
posted by powerchuck at 7:00 PM
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