West Fork offers refuge from ‘touristy’ Sedona

ALONG THE WEST FORK TRAIL — “I’m not sure why I came to Sedona,” remarks Janet Hamilton, a massage therapist visiting from Manhattan.

Hamilton has just joined me in a sandstone alcove located along the clear waters of the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon, where we’ve both stopped to take a rest. “It’s too touristy for me,” she says.

The irony of Hamilton’s comment seems to escape her, seeing as how she’s a tourist herself. But we both agree that things are nicer out here away from the shops and restaurants. Sedona epitomizes all Western communities that are fated to be both beautiful and endowed with an agreeable climate: commercialized and populated to the point where the very qualities of space, quiet, and freedom to explore, which so captivated everyone in the first place, have largely disappeared, exchanged without apology for a grid of exorbitant real estate.

It’s the way of the West. In Arizona you don’t have to stick around long to see gorgeous desert transformed into parking lots. But Sedona is also the place where the Colorado Plateau’s southern edge drops in a dramatic escarpment of sedimentary rock called the Mogollon Rim, a convoluted terrain riddled with rough canyons and high, forested mesas that lay well outside the reach of development. One of the best known canyons is West Fork, a tributary to Oak Creek Canyon, where I have come not only to experience the land but also to push beyond the well-beaten trail leading into this canyon.

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INTERACTIVES

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West Fork is the most popular trail in the Sedona area with its easy hiking, cool running stream and beauty. The Sedona tourism industry directs so many visitors to West Fork by encouraging sightseers to hike the gentle 3.5-mile trail from the Call O’ The Canyon parking lot ($8 to park). It’s not unusual for the place to be filled with hundreds of people on a summertime weekend.

Although gorgeous and even tranquil in those 3.5 miles, West Fork continues nine more intriguing miles past the trail’s end, deeper into the officially designated Red Rocks-Secret Mountain Wilderness, where people tend to be fewer and the wilderness more truly wild.

A pool that stretches from wall to wall at the 3.5-mile mark signals the gateway to this upper stretch of canyon. The prospect of getting wet is enough to convince the majority of hikers to turn back at this point and head for home. But for the more adventurous, this is where the hike really starts.

The water is a perfect temperature, and hardly ever more than two feet deep. After the trail disappears, it’s usually easiest to walk in the creek instead of bushwhacking along the banks. Minnows and small fish dart from your footsteps as you slosh along.

The same red and white sandstones that make Sedona so attractive also form the 1,500-foot walls of West Fork. As I head past the wading pool and round a few turns in the canyon, the cliffs make for a continuously shifting array of spectacular erosional forms – buttes, spires, alcoves, walls streaked with desert varnish, petrified sand dunes – all of which support a forest of cliff-bound ponderosas and Douglas firs. It makes it hard to keep your eyes on your feet, which you’ll need to do to avoid slippery rocks.

Every so often a wet-smelling, cool breeze flows downstream. Although it’s warm enough in August to take an afternoon dip in the creek, you’ll never feel like you’re getting sun-blasted in this part of West Fork. In many places, the namesake oaks and other deciduous trees overhang the creek, and in other places, arching “waves” of sandstone loom over the running water to provide a shady avenue for travel.

While taking a break at a bend in the canyon, I enjoy the relative quiet afforded by the lack of people. Canyon wrens sing from unseen perches, scrub jays squawk in their harsh voices, and flowing water gurgles nearby. A spring beside the creek fills my water bottle with sweet, pure water and I drink deeply, soaking in the pleasures of solitude beneath the majestic, towering canyon walls.

Side canyons appear occasionally, some of which invite exploration. In any given year, more black bears and mountain lions see these minor tributaries than people. However, I stick to the main canyon, where wildflowers and ferns and mosses sprout from the sandstone along the creek.

When I’ve had enough of walking, I choose a pleasant alcove to spend two nights. Few others venture here, but those who I do are like Janet Hamilton: like-minded folks who are relieved to know there is still a place near a “touristy” town like Sedona where nature retains its potent magic.

HOW TO GET THERE

Driving directions: From the junction of Arizona 179 and 89A in Sedona, drive north on Arizona 89A for 10.3 miles, then turn west into the Call of the Canyon day use area.

Facilities: Restroom. The day use area is open from 8 a.m. to dusk.

Cost: $8 per vehicle. Red Rock Parking Passes are not accepted here, nor are national park passes.

Length: 6.8-mile round trip to the end of the designated trail and back, 24 miles if hiking to the very upper end of the canyon and back. Camping is allowed, but only 6 miles beyond the parking lot.

Note: Take hiking shoes that you can get wet. Dogs are allowed but must be leashed.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.