A Great Day in Sedona and Taking the Road Less Traveled

Today, we hiked Soldier’s Pass in Sedona.

The trails in Arizona are tricky, because everything looks so similar and there aren’t well defined marked trails. You can easily get thrown off course. The good news is that there are such prominent land marks all around you that even if you lose the trail, you can generally find your direction back.

Today, we viewed far off the trail and actually did some climbing. We saw a fun ledge / rocky cliffside to climb and the view from the top was brilliant.

and here’s the view facing the other direction.

After we climbed back down, we went hiking for the “secret cave.” By this time, it was about 9:30 and by the time we found it, there were a lot of people inside the cave. I try not to be overly paranoid about Covid, but Jules is pregnant so we don’t take any unnecessary chances. Needless to say, we got to the cave but didn’t have a chance to get inside.

As we were walking back, we passed lots of people and many of them asked us for directions to find the secret cave. Not so secret after all.

It turns out, there’s a lot of Instagram content and blog content about the cave, so everyone that comes to the trail wants to find it.

The cave was cool, but the adventure that Jules and I went on was way cooler. Climbing that rocky cliffside was awesome. The view from the top was endless. We were alone, on top of the world. We sat up there for 15 minutes and ate a protein bar and drank water and enjoyed the sound of the birds and the waves in the air.

It was another reminder to never follow the beaten path. All the good stuff is where the crowds aren’t.