It’s All about the Red Rocks

At the beginning of March we took one last over-night trip. We went north again. While on our way to the Grand Canyon we passed two other national parks that we wanted to see. We just didn’t have the time then so we made a special trip to see Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki. Since it’s too far to get up there and back home we had to stay the night somewhere, and where better than Sedona? It’s a big tourist spot. People have been telling Maya for months that we just have to go. On the way back we to Phoenix we planned to stop at yet another National Park: Montezuma Castle. It was a great trip.

Getting up to Flagstaff was no problem. By the time we were there, there was snow on the ground. It wasn’t very cold, but the snow was lingering. Sunset Crater Volcano is worth a visit if you are at all in the area. It’s a small cinder cone – literally a huge pile of ash and other loose ejecta – and it’s only 1000 years old. Most volcanic mountains you can name are much older. The other think that makes the volcano so unique is the different colored layers. Most of the cinders are black, but at the very end of the eruption, the color turned to red so there is this permanent sunset tinge to the mountain.

The other big feature is the lava flow. There is actually a few flows that cover much of the land of the park. The Bonito lava flow is an amazing jumble of broken rock that covers everything in the northwest area of the park. You can really see how it rolled along, filling the valley. Matt, big geology nerd that he is was really impressed by the lava. Can’t you tell? The park is a very picturesque place. We didn’t happen upon any place that wasn’t stunning to look at. Picturesque and lonely. When there you are pretty far away from civilization so there’s nothing but the mountains, the trees and the whipping wind.

That feeling of isolation is only stronger when you drive up to Wupatki. The park preserves the ruins of half a dozen pueblos of the Sinagua culture. It’s not really a culture as in “a group of living people”, but more of a system of adaptations to the high desert recognized by archeologists. Sinagua is simply, “without water” and refers to the way these Native Americans seemed to make a living in such a dry environment. Wupatki Pueblo was built in the 1100s and was the center of a community numbering in the thousands. It’s all built out of the red native stone and almost blends into its surroundings. Almost, but not quite. There is a whole complex with a ball court and a few smaller homes scattered around.

Wupatki is not the only ruin in the park. One of the others we visited is called The Citadel. It’s build of red and black stones at the top of lava-rock hill. This hill is right next to some kind of sink hole. In addition to a great view of the Sunset Crater and the San Francisco Peaks in the distance you can also look down into this immense pit. The fact that some Indian groups believed that their ancestors came into the world from a cave comes to mind when looking down from the citadel.

After seeing the two parks we headed back to Flagstaff and ate supper at Beaver Street Brewery. We went there last time we were in Flagstaff and the food was still amazing. The beer too! We took the “growler” we got last time back and had it filled back up. Growler is apparently what you call a half-gallon jug of beer. They had a Belgian style beer on tap, but you couldn’t get it in a growler so we got the bock instead. Also very tasty. The easiest way to get from Flagstaff to Sedona is to take highway 89A which travels beside Oak Creek Canyon for a while and then in a shocking set of switch-backs works it’s way down into Oak Creek Canyon. It’s like the wilderness version of Lombard Street (which we have also driven down). We had timed our trip so that we would be driving down the canyon at sunset. It was amazing. Once on the canyon floor, next to the creek and surrounded by Northern Arizona’s pine trees, it was more like being in the Smoky Mountains.

As a result of that timing we missed the thing Sedona is most famous for until the next morning: the red rocks. It’s the rusty red buttes that attract a lot of the tourist attention in Sedona. They are nice. The whole area around Sedona is part of a National Forest and for a low-low five dollars you can buy a Red Rocks Pass and park all the scenic turn-outs and trail heads. If we were to go again, that’s what we would do. There are trails and cool rock formations to look at almost everywhere. First thing that morning we took a look around the town. Sedona itself is not much to our taste. We walked the little strip and it’s just like all the other little tourist trap strips in all the other little tourist trap towns. Jewry, expensive art, gems, antiques, Olde Tyme photo parlors and the like. There were a lot of westerns filmed around Sedona in the 1950s so there are some plaques that commemorate that. If you are into any of that, cool. We just aren’t. We headed to Red Rocks State Park. It’s not in the prime location, but there are some decent trails. There’s also this house up a hill. It’s the dream home of a TWA executive husband and an artist wife. It was never finished because the couple split up, but if got far enough along to be habitable. It’s called the House of Apache Fires. You can only see it from the outside but we could tell that it’s flat, open and expansive, just the way we imagine our dream home.

After lunch at a fun little sandwich shop slash specialty imports store called Euro Deli we headed for home. Along the way we stopped at Oak Creek Vineyards and Winery. We haven’t been to any wineries in Arizona, but along Oak Creek and in the Verde Valley there are several. We tried their stuff and ended up getting two bottles even though they were close to $25 apiece. We got the Zinfandel and the Fumé Blanc. Excellent! Not as good as the wines we got in California, but certainly the best wine we’ve had in quite some time.

Still headed generally south we next came to Montezuma Castle National Monument. The park is actually in two pieces. The northern-most part is called Montezuma Well. It’s a collapsed cave that has resulted in a water-filled sink hole. Farmers of the Southern Sinagua lived in houses built into the sides of the sink. There is a small outlet from the sink they the Indians diverted for irrigation. The Sinagua who lived on the edges of Montezuma Well didn’t really want for water as there is the sink and a river not too far away as well. River or no, it’s still a fairly dry landscape. Then there is this pit with trees growing on the sides and ducks on the lake at the bottom. It’s like noting else we have ever seen. It’s Matt’s favorite stop of the trip.

The main part of Montezuma Castle is the “castle” itself. It’s a five story, 20 room dwelling set 100 feet up the side of a bluff facing Beaver Creek. The name is a complete misnomer, of course. European settlers in the area somehow assumed that the cliff-side dwelling was the last retreat of the Aztec Emperor whom Cortez had displaced 300 years earlier. No. It’s not. There was once an even larger complex on the ground nearby. The foundations remain. You used to be able to go up into the castle via a series of ladders. That practice was ended in 1951 when the volume of traffic started to threaten the structure. The way that National Parks preserve things sure has changed.

One last thing of interest: this is our 100th posting. There won’t be too many more. Our time in Arizona is fast coming to a close.