Chapter 4, The Grand Canyon, Red Rock Area of Sedona, Arizona (Verde Valley Thousand Trails)
- traci wilson
- Apr 12
- 5 min read
The travel between Morgan Hill California and Cottonwood Arizona consisted of two long days of driving with a one-night stopover in Newberry Springs California. It was a stressful stretch, and not of much interest to write about, but I will say that driving 750 miles in two days with only one night’s rest in between is not enjoyable. We had a couple mishaps as well—Dave had an altercation with a light pole trying to take a shortcut through the RV park resulting in about a five-foot gash down the side of our 5th wheel and Maggie, in her boredom, chewed all the way through her harness. There weren’t any pet stores for miles around to replace it, so we had to rig the harness up to get into Cottonwood before we could buy a new one. I had an emotional meltdown the night in Newberry Springs over not having enough time to do all the laundry on our one night’s stopover and not having enough time for my writing. Not our best moments, all in all. Hopefully, the rest of the trip goes a little smoother than the last couple of days!
We pulled into Verde Valley Thousand Trails outside of Cottonwood around 3:30 p.m. Although the last couple of TT campgrounds we stayed in had assigned us a spot, here we were back to first come first serve. Verde Valley is a huge campground, the largest we’ve seen so far. It has several different levels that start at the top of a canyon and drop in layers to the bottom. We were in the bottom section, which was all that as left coming in so late. I liked that section because it had trees and was more protected that the upper levels, but I didn’t like the fact that the spots for larger RVs were right next to each other. We had the same setup at Morgan Hill. Our front door faces our neighbor’s door so there’s no privacy. It’s especially difficult if your neighbor has dogs, which, as fate would have it, ours did. And minions. That’s what we call little kids because Kenai doesn’t like small children at all. I think he doesn’t trust them because they can be loud and erratic. The other negative about being down in the canyon is there’s no cell coverage to speak of. You either have to walk up the (very steep) hill or go to the clubhouse. Otherwise, it was a well-kept, clean campground with friendly staff and lots of things to do.
Our big adventure on this leg was a day trip to the Grand Canyon. I want to note that if we come back in the future and want to go to the Grand Canyon, it would be much better to stay near Flagstaff instead of coming from Cottonwood. It was 156 miles and took us two and a half hours to get there. We liked the Cottonwood/Sedona area also, so what we’d probably do is stay at Verde Valley for a week or two then go up to Flagstaff after. There were a couple of nice-looking KOA campgrounds just past Flagstaff, with the nicest looking one in Williams.
The south rim of the Grand Canyon was absolutely stunning, and it was a picture-perfect day to visit with cloudless blue skies and mild temperatures in the mid to upper 50s. You can have leashed dogs on all the rim trails, which are all paved. We parked near the visitors center and hiked from Mathers Point to Maricopa Point and back, which was about nine miles. It was very busy around parking areas and the lodge, but the people thinned out in between. We were surprised how wiped out we felt afterwards—even the dogs were exhausted—until we discovered we’d actually done over 5000 ft. in elevation gain on this deceptively “easy” trail. Most of the views along the way were variations of the same, just slightly different angles or perspectives, but that doesn’t diminish in any way the grandeur of the place. Truly awe inspiring! The trail had markers representing the passage of millions of years as you walked along the “trail of time”. It was fun to see the different rock samples that accompanied the markers from the various time periods showing earth’s history dating back two billion years
The other thing we did of interest in the area was a hike on the Boynton Canyon trail outside of Sedona Arizona. We didn’t get there until 10:30 a.m. which we thought should be fine since it was a Monday in early April, but we couldn't have been more wrong! It was so crowded when we got there that we had to wait for a place to park. The parking area was completely full, and cars were parked in long lines along both sides of the road leading to the trailhead. It was well worth the wait though, because the trail was beautiful!
The views of the red rocks towering all around us were breathtaking, which was offset by the abundance of vegetation surrounding the trail. The path itself was varied, with stretches of crushed rock, larger flat rock sections and soft dirt that reminded me of beach sand, only red (Maggie’s feet were orange by the end). We climbed about 500 ft. in elevation which wasn’t too bad. The downside to the hike was that it was incredibly busy, with almost constant foot traffic moving both ways. That and the trail was narrow in many spots, so it made the going difficult with three dogs in tow when passing other hikers. The other thing that wasn’t great is there is a fancy resort being built right next to part of the trail and the construction noise detracted a bit from the experience. Besides the beautiful scenery, we were delighted to happen across a squadron of wild pigs, called javelinas, that were grazing in a grassy area along the way. I’ve never seen wild pigs while hiking before and it was quite the thrill! It was a great hike and one we’ll definitely do again if we come back to this area.
Next, we will be traveling to Albuquerque New Mexico, with a one-night stopover in Holbrook Arizona to visit the Petrified Forest National Park. The travel days won’t be as long as the previous time we did back-to-back travel days with only one night in between, so hopefully it won’t be as bad as the last time. Fingers crossed!
Comments