A driver thrills his Pink Jeep Tour passengers on the Broken Arrow Trail.
A red rock view is doubled by its reflection after a rainstorm.
road begins in the middle of town, but we opted to drive out of town and head north on I-17 toward Flagstaff where there is an exit onto Schnebly Hill Road high above Sedona. At the beginning of this scenic drive we were in thick ponderosa pine forest, and views were nonexistent as we drove our truck downhill. Eventually, however, the ponderosa pine trees gave way to ever more astonishing red rock vistas. Soon we were in Jeep and ATV country on rugged terrain, and wild Pink Jeeps passed us going in both directions. Our 4x4 diesel truck handled the harsh road well, but some of the twists and turns in the road were a bit tight for a long bed. The views, however, were out of this world. No wonder a drive on this road is considered a "must do" activity when visiting Sedona! Another excursion out of town took us to Montezuma's Castle National Monument. This ancient Indian cliff dwelling ruin is perched high up a sheer rock wall and dates back to the time period of Europe's Middle Ages. Early settlers in the American Southwest assumed the ancient cliff dwellings and pueblos they found were of Aztec origin because the Aztec ruins had recently been discovered and explored some 1,500 miles further south in Mexico. They named these ruins after the Aztec king, Montezuma, and attributed the dwellings to his culture. However, archaeologists later realized the builders of
the cliff dwellings were not Aztec but were an entirely different group of people that they named the Sinagua which, in Spanish, means "Without Water." The Sinuagua people did find water aplenty, however, in a nearby natural limestone sinkhole that in modern times became known as Montezuma's Well. Fed by an underground spring, this unusual small pond is 125 feet deep in one spot. We strolled around the top of the well and then headed down a trail toward the water where we found ourselves in the shade of tall sycamore and willow trees, surrounded by dozens of blooming columbine flowers. Along one rock wall at this lower level we also noticed some graffiti painted on the rock: "Photos of this by Rothrock. Phoenix, 1878." Intrigued, I looked up the name and learned that George H. Rothrock had been a rancher, gold miner, and store clerk in Arizona in the mid-1800s and later became a photographer with a studio at the intersection of First and Jefferson in Phoenix. He had put his name on the wall at this tourist site in 1878 as an advertisement for his photos and studio. More amusing and amazing still, sometime later we took our fifth-wheel trailer to Rucker Trailer Works in Mesa, Arizona, for repairs, and we discovered that the two brothers who own the shop and were working on
RED ROCK BEAUTY
COAST TO COAST SPRING MAGAZINE 2020
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