Strenuous and Longer

The Hike House in Sedona has just about everything for hiking, and they have something I have never seen before--an interactive trail finder for hikers.  You input the length of time you like to hike and the level of difficulty.  The owner of the store helped us plan some hikes for the next week.  He really thought we should try one of the longer and more strenuous hikes, the Munds Wagon Trail.  The hiking time is approximately 4.5 hours, 8 miles and climbs 1,100 feet.  Okay, we are in.

We started out at 10 a.m. walked up and down on this path, but ultimately we were climbing in elevation over 1,000 feet.  It pushed us, but the effort is worth it for the views of the mountains and the city below.  The trail this time of year includes waterfalls and water running over slickrock at the bottom of the canyon--an added bonus for today’s walk.  The green forest with the backdrop of the red rocks we saw is a color theme in much of the local art and rightfully so, it is beautiful combination.

Instead of continuing to the very end of the trail , we opted to take the side trip to the Cow Pies trail heading out to the tall rock formations looking like stacked “cow pies”.  Still about 8 miles round trip.

Great hike, but we are dragging tonight!