A
few of my co-workers from Sedona Rouge invited me to go on a hike with them on
Tuesday. When this morning rolled
around I got a text from the organizer stating that our hike was canceled due
to a chance of rain. This is what
it looked like outside:
Having
been cheated out of my hike I decided to lone-wolf it and go on my own
Adventure. But where would I
go? Well, I remembered a
conversation that I had with one of our regular guests at the resort. This gentleman was an avid hiker and
knew the area extremely well despite not being a local. He told me about this trail called
Sterling Pass, which was just north of Manzanita Campground. I really wish I could tell you his
name, because it’s a very fun German name that I thoroughly enjoy saying with
an accent. But for the sake of
privacy we shall refer to him as Herr Zimmerman (why? Because it too is a cool
German name!).
So
I head out! Driving east on the
89A from the Resort I passed the two main round-a-bouts and passed through
uptown (the tourist trap). From
uptown the drive is about 15 minutes north along the 89A as it becomes a small
two lane highway the weaves through trees and boulders the size of buses. My trail is on the side of the highway
and “you could drive past it a hundred times and miss it” in the words of Herr
Zimmerman. There is a small area
for about two or three cars to park in front of the trail or you could park at
Manzanita Campground. I suggest
you pull over on the side of the road so you don’t have to walk along the
highway and so you don’t have to pay the ridiculous $18.
Here
is the beginning of the trail.
It
was only about thirty minutes into the hike and I was already breathing heavy
and sweating profusely. There is a
quick elevation gain on the street side of Sterling Pass. Les Stroud would have been very
disappointed in me; I waited too long to take off my jacket. In the wilderness and especially
survivor situations you must do whatever you can avoid sweating. Even if that means taking off your
shirt and showing off your amazingly sculpted abs. Think I’m joking; well think about this, why do we
sweat? It’s so our body can use
that liquid to better transfer heat out of us. Liquid is a great transferor of heat. So when you sweat up your shirt and a
cold gust of wind comes along get ready to suffer. How do you suppose you’ll dry your shirt? You certainly don’t have a dryer
machine. Anyway, the point is,
don’t sweat if you can help it.
Where was I?
Do
not be discouraged fellow Adventurers; though there is a quick elevation gain
it is plenty worth it. The trail
switchbacks along the mountainside and there are some very interesting rock formations
along the way. At one point I came
across this formation that jutted out from the side of the mountain and had a
sheer drop on the other side. It’s
a little difficult to explain so here are some pictures (which don’t really do
it justice either):
About
forty minutes into the hike I reach the top of the pass where it begins to go
down the other side of the mountain.
I found myself a little disappointed. Traditionally I have always been a fan of hiking to the top,
conquering that mountain and then coming back down. I guess I just like having goals (i.e. the top of the
mountain). So I keep going down
the other side since I certainly wasn’t going to stop after a mere 40 minutes.
This
side had a different feel to it. There
seemed to be a much thicker canopy of trees. Many of the trees were changing colors into reds, yellows
and oranges so I took some pictures (perhaps my three least favorite colors):
There
were also a lot of trees that looked like they had survived a fire and many had
also fallen over. I’m not sure
what the story is here.
When
you spend enough time alone and have an imagination like I do you begin to
think up strange things. On my way
down the switchbacks I heard a noise that I did not recognize. It sounded like a rapid succession of
loud taps on a tree. Almost like a
clicking sound up in the canopy.
Perhaps you’re thinking the same thing as me? Predators in the trees!
It
wasn’t long after this that I came across another human. When I first spotted him farther down
the switchbacks it would have been too difficult to communicate. So instead of awkwardly shouting down
the mountain I picked up the pace a little. I eventually came up on him and asked if he had done this
trail before. He said no and told
me he was not from around here. I
asked him where was he was from and he told me Germany (I now know where I get
my spirit of Adventure, it must reside in my German blood). He also informed me that he was
attempting to reach Vultee Arch.
I’m glad he told me this because now I had a goal too! I walked on ahead of him and was
determined to find this Vultee Arch landmark.
At
the foot of the mountain it hit me.
I realized what that clicking noise must have been. After see so many burnt and fallen
trees I realized it must have been the sound of trees squeaking in the
wind. Anyways, I soon came up
behind a sign. It was facing away
from me. Upon inspection the sign read <- Vultee Arch, -> Sterling Pass (which was where I had come from). So I took the trail to Vultee Arch.
Although
the trail was a little difficult to spot at times it was wasn’t too much
farther to reach the Arch. And
what a magnificent sight it was!
I’m
so glad that my German friend had told me about the Arch. This gave me a goal and it was a really
cool landmark. There was a
fifty-fifty chance that I would have gone straight at the fork and missed it
altogether. I waited around a
little bit to catch my breath and let him catch up with me. I knew he wasn’t far behind.
He
eventually did, and we sat next to the Arch and talked a little more about other
hikes in the area and introduced ourselves. I didn’t quite understand his name but he just told me to
call him Ralph. After a few
minutes I told him to be safe and I departed once again. I was now on my way back up Sterling
Pass to get back to my car. On my
way back I ran into a few more people.
I was glad to see people pushing themselves.
This
was a great hike and in total took me about three hours. Thank you Herr Zimmerman for the
suggestion. I’m glad that it
didn’t rain because Sterling Pass crosses over what looks like a dried up river
bed numerous times and that would have made the hike a little more
challenging. I would give this a 5 out of 10 on the Adventure scale, since it was difficult but was still a trail.
Weiter Abenteuer meine Freunde!
