Last night after visiting with a friend, I left the Grand Canyon for probably the last time in a while, and headed down to Flagstaff for the night. I awoke early, ate the sub-par continental breakfast and the hit the road headed south to Sedona. I had heard a lot about Sedona, but this would be my first visit to the "Land of the Vortex".
After a scenic and interesting ride through Oak Creek Canyon I drove through the actual town of Sedona, went grocery shopping for some camping food, and then headed off to Boynton Canyon. The Boynton Canyon Trail is one of the more popular trails in the area, but luckily I arrived early enough in the morning that finding a parking space was not an issue. After parking and paying the required parking fee I hit the trail.
The views were immediately striking with lots of red rock canyon walls.
I slowly made my way up the canyon, skirting the boundary of some sort of "New Age" resort. Despite the resort's proximity, I entered into the Red Rock/Secret Mountain Wilderness.
Just as the trail started to veer away from the resort I found a grouping of different colored crosses in the ground.
Was this a religious site or just the site of one of the many vortexes in the Sedona area.
After checking out the weird religious/vortex site I headed further up the canyon.
Views were quite nice
and I soon entered into some unexpected deep and slippery snow.
The snow cover turned some hikers I met around before the end of the trail. I, however, was determined to keep on to the end. I found the end of the trail in a nice, sunny, snow-free setting.
There was a tall pour-off that I can imagine becomes a waterfall after a heavy rain.
There were also lots of agaves around.
I ate a snack and rested a bit and then turned around to head back to the trailhead.
The hike back was just as scenic as the hike in.
I decided to hike a short spur trail to an overlook of the canyon system.
There was a nice view from there, but some strange "new age' stuff going on. I decided not to spend too much time there and headed back to the car.
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