Trip Report: Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona

On Saturday, I arrived with my parents in Sedona, AZ.  We're here visiting family, Grandpa and Lorraine. The scenery here is almost unbelievably phenomenal.  I know those words sound like overstatements, but... just look at the photos. :) 

From the deck of the house, we have panoramic views of red rock formations.  Our house is also right next to one of the four mystical "energy vortices" of Sedona (Sedona attracts new-age spiritual types), and people can be seen at the vortex from dawn to dusk.  I may take some photos of the view from the house and post them later.

It's been getting up past 100 degrees in the afternoon, so this morning, to beat the heat, we left at 7am for a hike through Oak Creek Canyon.  We took West Fork Trail, which follows the creek into a deep canyon of red rocks.  Just to get an idea of the scenery, here are some photos from earlier today:

 

Seriously, all of Sedona has rock formations like this.  Hence my earlier phrase, "unbelievably phenomenal."  Here's the most-photographed part of the West Fork Trail:

We found part of the creek with a natural water slide:

We took a break to enjoy the scenery next to the water slide.  Here are Grandpa and Dad:

Here are Mom and Grandma Lorraine:

And me, on a rock.

After the break, we continued deeper into the canyon.  We passed some greenery:

But mostly we were looking up at the rocks:

We also passed some piles of little rocks.  While there always seem to be rock piles along rocky hikes, in Sedona there's a chance that the piles are made by people who feel a special spiritual energy in the area.  In the past, I've seen circles of rocks here, forming new-age shrines.

Another interesting feature of the hike was a little room we found built into one of the cliffs near the trailhead.  The skeleton of an old, three-room house was nearby, so it's possible this room was once used for storage.

Overall, the hike was beautiful.  I occasionally got a strange impression, though... a strange impression that I was in a screensaver.  So I took a photo, and I now present a Sedona desktop background for you!  Click to get full resolution and enjoy. :)

Tomorrow we're heading out early again, this time to Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock, which are isolated formations as opposed to canyons.  We may also see some Native American ruins.  More to come!