Sedona Hiking Trails

A short first morning, before the day's real plan starts, fits Bell Rock Pathway or Fay Canyon Trail: both are under an hour and a half and neither needs a scramble. A photography morning wants Cathedral Rock or Doe Mountain for the climb to an open view, timed for the hour after sunrise when the light rakes low across the rock and the lot has not yet filled. A full day with lunch built in fits Boynton Canyon or the long approach to Devil's Bridge from Dry Creek Vista, both of which run three to five hours once the drive and the walk are added together.

A hot-afternoon fallback, when the exposed trails are unwise, is West Fork: its canyon walls and thirteen creek crossings keep the first three miles ten to fifteen degrees cooler than the open red rock.

If you only have one morning

Pair the Bell Rock Pathway with the Courthouse Butte Loop from the same trailhead cluster; together they cover 7.3 miles of the easiest ground on this list and put you within sight of four named rock formations without a single technical step. Our one-day Sedona itinerary builds a full morning around this pairing.

If a group has mixed ability

Broken Arrow splits cleanly at Chicken Point: the 1.5-mile out to the overlook is Moderately easy and turns back a group member who wants a shorter day, while the Submarine Rock spur beyond it adds real scrambling for anyone who wants more. The same trail is driven by the jeep tours that use it, so a hiker who arrives at Chicken Point on foot shares the overlook with vehicles for a few minutes at a time; arrive before mid-morning to miss the first tours out of town. Doe Mountain works the same way in miniature: the 0.7-mile climb to the mesa top is the only hard section, and anyone who stops there still gets the full 360-degree view without walking the flat rim loop beyond it.

The free Sedona Shuttle serves Cathedral Rock, Little Horse, Soldier Pass, Dry Creek Vista and Mescal, running Thursday through Sunday, 7:00am to 5:30pm year-round, with a wait between pickups of 15 to 45 minutes depending on the route. No reservation is needed, both the Park & Ride lots and the ride itself are free, and the vehicles are wheelchair accessible with racks for up to three bikes. Of the eleven trails on this page, that covers Cathedral Rock outright and both the Mescal and Dry Creek Vista approaches to Devil's Bridge; Soldier Pass is served too, though its trail lies just past Little Horse on the same route.

What the Sedona Shuttle's own page does not state is whether the trailhead lots themselves are gated or physically closed to private cars while the shuttle runs; the page frames the shuttle as a free alternative to driving, not as a ban on driving. Treat the small lots at these four trailheads as first-come, first-served regardless of the shuttle, and plan on the Park & Ride if you are arriving after mid-morning. For the trailheads the shuttle does not reach, Boynton Canyon, Bell Rock, Broken Arrow, Doe Mountain, Fay Canyon and Airport Loop, a car and a Red Rock Pass are the only way in; our parking guide has the fill times we have observed by trail.

The National Weather Service's HeatRisk scale runs zero to four rather than a single temperature cutoff, and its advice for outdoor exertion in Sedona is blunt: strenuous activity only between 4am and 7am, with one to two liters of water an hour outdoors after that. July averages a high of 91.5°F, and none of the eleven trails on this list has shade for more than a fraction of their length; West Fork's canyon walls are the one exception.

Arizona's monsoon runs a fixed calendar window, June 15 to September 30, busiest in August, and the National Weather Service in Flagstaff names Oak Creek and Sycamore Canyons directly in its flash-flood warning zones, warning of "raging killer currents possible in side canyons and narrow slot canyons." West Fork's thirteen creek crossings and Devil's Bridge's washes are both exposed to this; check the forecast the morning of, not the night before, and turn back at the first distant thunder. Our hiking safety guide has the full checklist for heat, water and monsoon timing across every trail on this page.

Nine of the eleven trails on this page carry an official Forest Service time estimate. Fay Canyon Trail is the exception: its page gives the length, 2.1 miles roundtrip, and the elevation gain, 144 feet, but no estimated walking time. Devil's Bridge's two longer approaches, via Dry Creek Vista and via Mescal, are the other gap: the Forest Service states the roundtrip mileage for each, 5.8 miles and 4.0 miles, but does not separately publish an elevation-gain figure for either, only for the short Dry Creek Road approach.

Where the source is silent, this page says so rather than printing a number as if it were official. Fay Canyon's "about 1 hour" above is our own routing at a typical walking pace on Easy-rated ground, not a Forest Service figure. The same applies anywhere else on this site a time or elevation figure is marked as our own estimate: the distinction is deliberate, and it is the difference between a number you can rely on for a booking and one you can rely on for a rough plan.

A Red Rock Pass, or the federal America the Beautiful/Interagency pass, covers parking at the great majority of Coconino National Forest trailheads around Sedona, standard sites named on the Forest Service's own list at $5 for a day, $15 for a week or $20 for the year. Passes are sold three ways: online through Recreation.gov, at fee-machine kiosks at the recreation sites themselves, or in person at the Red Rock Ranger Visitor Center, 8375 State Route 179, Sedona (928-203-2900). Buying ahead online avoids a stop the morning of, since not every trailhead kiosk takes a card.

Five Coconino National Forest recreation sites sit outside this system entirely and need a separate Coconino Hospitality Annual Pass instead: Call of the Canyon at West Fork, Crescent Moon, Grasshopper Point, Beaver Creek Day Use and Lower Lake Mary. Of the eleven trails on this page, only West Fork falls in that group, which is why its $15-a-day fee above is not a typo next to the standard $5 Red Rock Pass rate on the other ten.