Leaving Catalina SP today and heading north, passing through Phoenix, stopping to get some dog food at the Costco (don’t know where they put it all, they eat more than us!). Heading to the attractively named Dead Horse Ranch State Park. The ranch got its name when the original owner found a dead horse on the property (I don’t think I would have immoralized that particular event).
The state park is next to the town of Cottonwood and less than 1/2 drive to Sedona. One of the nicest features of the park is the dog park just outside of the park. Up almost every morning for a trip to the park with the kids. Had some rain on a couple of days, so some very happy, very muddy dogs!
Even more importantly, just outside the park was a Mexican bakery (Romano’s Panaderia) which was open Mon-Fri from 5am-2pm or until sold out. We went to pick up a few items for breakfast and the place was busy. The baked goods were inexpensive and really good. Not too sweet. Great textures and taste.
Rain in the park, means snow in the mountains. The temperature hit freezing on a couple of nights, but no snow in the campground.
There are a few, poorly marked, but nice walking trails that start right in the campground. One of the trails provided a view of the nearby Tuzigoot ruins. Buildings on the limestone ridge were started around 1000 ce, and were largely abandoned by 1300 ce as the residents moved to a more migratory lifestyle.
About half-way up the mountain that is visible from the campground is a town, Jerome (elevation 5000 ft), that was founded in the 19th century and became one of the largest copper mines in the USA. The population reached 10,000 in the 1920’s when the mine was in full operation, but since the closure of the mine the population has dwindled to its current 100 hardy souls. It is mainly a kitchy kind of tourist attraction now, which we didn’t visit.
We took the dogs to the spa one day (Bark n Purr Pet Care Center), so that we could take a helicopter ride around the Sedona area.
We booked a 55 minute ride that was supposed to include other people, but when we got to the Guidance Air office at the Sedona airport we discovered that we were the only ones booked, a private helicopter tour!
The Sedona airport is located above the town, on a flat mesa. Very strange to drive up a hill to get to an airport, and the airport runway is not very long (glad we are taking a helicopter and not a plane).
There was no snow in Sedona, but lots of snow in the surrounding mountains.
Very cool helicopter ride, we will definitely do another one in a different location!
After the helicopter ride we still had lots of time before we had to pick up the kids, so we went into Sedona for a wine tasting and a bite to eat.
Sedona is a very chi-chi town. Lots of upper end hotels, bars and restaurants. We ended up at “The Art of Wine” as we didn’t have reservations anywhere and we also wanted a place where we could have something to eat. Our chosen place turned out to be as upper end as many other places in Sedona seemed to be. Good internet find.
We discovered a new thing: Wine Flights. We have had beer flights (several small glasses of different kinds of beer) before, but never a wine flight. We selected flights make up of only local wines, white and red. Each tasting had a couple of mouthfuls of wine, about a glass and a half in total. All of the wines we tasted were quite good, a bit surprised at how good some of them were! Our server was a recent graduate of the local Yavapai College Viticulture program and had a wealth of knowledge of the local wines we were tasting.
The kids seemed to enjoy the spa so much that we decided to take them back again the next day. We rented two UTV’s from Sedona ATV. They were the only rental company that offered single seat UTV’s as opposed to two or four seater machines.
According to the rental company’s website we were to be given gps units and allowed to select which trails we felt comfortable on based on our experience (none). When we got there we got paper maps with printed instructions. And a tablet that displayed a PDF map of the area, which turned out to be totally useless as the tablet turned off after about 30 seconds without input.
We weren’t asked about our skill levels (still none), and were given basic directions to the trail head. We lurched out into traffic (automatic transmissions, but we still managed to lurch) and headed off.
We managed to locate the start of “Broken Arrow Trail” where we encountered our first obstacle: a couple of stones about 2′ tall stretched across the trail. Apparently, if you can’t get over these stones, you should probably find another trail to practice on.
After a few minutes we both managed to find the 4-wheel drive button and lurched (yep, one more time) over our first obstacle.
After that the trail became more manageable and we enjoyably motored along. The trail became more rocky with steeper ups-and-downs and we were quite pleased with ourselves until we had to pull over to let a group of Honda Pilot SUVs pass from the other direction. These SUVs looked like they would get stuck on a driveway curb and had no business on the trails we were on, but they motored slowly and serenely by us.
The trail continued to increase in difficulty as we proceeded, until once again we had to pull over to let some pink, yes pink, jeeps pass by from the other direction. These tour jeeps had benches fitted into the rear area and were filled with tourists. I can’t even begin to imagine how these jeeps managed some of the inclines we encountered.
We finally clawed our way up to the aptly named “Chicken Point” where the famous red rock of Sedona was highly evident.
The views from this elevated point were quite incredible.
If you look closely at the photo to the right you will see two lighter coloured lines running horizontally across the face of the cliff. These are mountain bike trails. Yes, mountain bike trails, for the intellectually challenged.
This youtube video provides more insight on this somewhat sketchy trail.
Here is a photo of Brenda descending the “Devil’s Staircase”. The photo does not impart a sense of how steep this section of the trail was. You had to push yourself backwards in the seat, and felt like the whole vehicle was going to flip over and roll down the rocks.
I am glad we only had to go down this section and not up it!
After surviving our first UTV experience, and loving every minute (even the ones that necessitated a replacement of undergarments) we decided that we had earned another wine flight. Picked up the kids from the spa and headed into Old Town Cottonwood, where we found the Arizona Stronghold wine tasting establishment. Nothing but Arizona wines here, and a much more laid back place (we lounged on a couch). Once again good wines, but the surprise hit was the apricot balsamic vinegar with olive oil and great dipping bread. The balsamic was from a supplier across the street and it was really, really good!
Trip Summary:
Depart from: Catalina State Park, AZ
Depart time: 11:00 am (Jan 9)
Odometer: 130422 miles
Arrive time: 3:30 pm Dead Horse Ranch State Park, AZ
Odometer: 130639 miles
Gas Summary:
Jan 9: 13.4 g @ $3.80/g ($50.84), odometer 130511
Jan 17 (Cottonwood): 19.58 g @ $3.13/g ($61.27), odometer 130737
Looks amazing! I have always wanted to go there. Enjoy!
We loved the Cottonwood/Sedona area and will definitely be back, and the Concha pastries from the local Panaderia are almost worth a trip by themselves!