Hi, Sedona. It was so good to be back. Don’tcha hate when you fall in love with a town that’s so far away?

After meandering our way south on 89A for what felt like forever, we finally ended up in Sedona and checked in at our home for the night at the Wildflower Inn at Bell Rock.

After moving all of our stuff in, we hurried up to Sedona’s downtown area, fought for our lives to find some free parking, and were grateful to find a little Mexican spot still open for dinner.

It really feels like when the sun goes down here, everyone goes to bed. Last time we dipped into town, we spent a few hours hiking the Airport Mesa trail at sunset – along with everyone else in a five mile radius, who brought their lawn chairs to the event – and rushed south to Phoenix for a red eye flight home.

So it felt really good to have way more time on this trip to actually breathe and enjoy ourselves rather than sticking to such a tight itinerary.

We woke up super early to get a parking spot at the shuttle stop and were pretty surprised to see how crowded it already was. The first shuttle picks up around 8:45AM, we got there just after 8AM, and we parked in an overflow lot near a school that added a tiny bit more walking.

There was someone casually parachuting? paragliding? around…

The first shuttle filled up fast and we were sure to grab seats like our life depended on it. Then watched as our shuttle driver gave walking instructions to the people who’d have to wait for the next one, and it was adding two+ miles more to the journey if they chose to hoof it. Nooo thanks.

Seven Sacred Pools is one of the first Instagrammy things I remember seeing about Sedona years ago. It’s found along the trail for Soldier Pass, and that trailhead is nestled within a pretty densely packed suburban (and $$$) area.

People used to be able to park their cars at a parking lot, but that’s super off limits now after Sedona blew up in popularity over the past 5-10 years and it became totally unsustainable. Hence, the Sedona Shuttle.

The Shuttle is nice in and of itself, but it gives the energy of being in a crowded National Park and limits what you can accomplish in one day since you’re on it’s scheduling whims and it stops running at 5pm, maybe leaving you stranded at the trailhead away from you car if the last one is full. Zion vibes.

The Seven Sacred Pools were so cool! It was fun to finally get to see them in person. We were there in April and it was nice that the water level wasn’t too dried up so we could really get a good sense of them.

The trail itself is well marked and easy to follow. I can’t imagine getting turned around here, it’s super crowded and you can’t go five minutes without running into another group of people.

Eventually, you reach the uphill scramble to the Soldier Pass Cave. If you take your time, it’s perfectly fine and not too difficult at all. We were surrounded by lots of older folks and they had no issues.

I’ve read some reviews saying people don’t find this part worth it, but I totally disagree. Seeing the cave from the ground is awesome, especially going under and viewing the window area.

You can also climb up inside the “cave” and explore a plank-walkway type area to look out the window and survey the area from above. I opted out of that because there were so many other people trying to do the same thing, but it was fun enough to guard the ever-mounting pile of backpacks and live vicariously through them haha.

We hung out for a little while longer and ate some snacks for breakfast, then headed out the way we came and low key felt like little fish going upstream with all of the people who were filing in.

This was our 10th day of adventuring around the red desert areas of Utah and Arizona, and you’d think we would have gotten tired of it. At least, I wondered if I would be by the end. What’s so interesting is that each of these little biomes have their own unique qualities and features. So if you really pay attention, you notice that they’re not necessarily the same at all.

We made it back to the trailhead parking lot/shuttle stop at 10:45am. There were at least 30 other people there waiting with us. By that point in the day, it was starting to become miserably hot while standing in the sun and we were all so ready to get back to our cars and have a real lunch.

It felt like fooorever, but finally the shuttle returned around 11:15am and we made it back to the car, only to return to basically where we were the evening before in downtown Sedona to meander with the other tourists and get a bite to eat.

We stopped for a souvenir for my dad from the Sedona Harley Davidson (as is tradition everywhere we go), ate some good food next door, and then completely a geocache that hilariously ended up being right in front of the Sedona Pink Jeep Tours storefront. Nothing more than geocaching in front of people who have no clue what you’re doing haha

Those were theeee best sweet potato fries ever.

We took deep breaths and said our sentimental good byes, again, to this quirky little place.

We still had *one* more stop on our crazy itinerary: Montezuma Castle. The visitor center closed at 4pm, we finished eating around 2pm, and it was like 90 minutes-ish away. Skrrrrrt.

(Of course we made it. That’s next.)

Seven Sacred Pools & Soldier Pass Cave via All Trails:
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/arizona/soldiers-pass-cave-spur-trail

Eat at Open Range in Sedona:
https://openrangesedona.com/#

Learn how to navigate the Sedona Shuttle:
https://sedonashuttle.com/

Stay at the Wildflower Inn at Bell Rock:
https://www.wildflowerinnsedona.com/