Jordan and Cibola PassTrails

The interNOT connection at my hotel (my name for the so-called "high speed" wireless here!) is really acting up, making uploading images and blogging in general painstakingly slow. Therefore, I am keeping tonight's photo offering brief. Sadly, this will not do justice to the beautiful hike I took today.

I got the idea of combining the Cibola Pass and Jordan trails from Richard and Sherry Mangum's excellent Sedona Hikes book. I originally was planning to do Soldier's Pass Arches first, then do the Cibola/Jordan loop. But Sedona can be unpredictable at times. The Soldier's Pass parking lot was filled with people waiting in line for spots, so rather than waste time there, I decided to head on over to the Jordan trailhead. But first, because you can never have enough pictures of Coffee Pot Rock, I took a shot of it from kind of a funky angle. It looks more like "Bird Beak Rock" here.

Although the book mentions doing Cibola first and returning on the Jordan Trail, I decided to do the loop in reverse, mainly because I wanted to do the entire Jordan Trail all the way to the end, rather than just the part that looped back from Cibola. Turns out the Jordan trailhead is WAY away from the nice little multi-trail parking lot in the area. The Cibola trail is much closer, though still an annoying distance for those of us who liked to get right to the trail after parking. Thankfully, there was also a little parking area near the Jordan trailhead, which I made note of on my way to the main lot. I had to decide whether to put my car at the Jordan trailhead, meaning a lengthy downhill walk down the road after my hike, or put it on the main lot and have a long walk down the road before my hike and a short uphill walk afterwards. While I was debating the issue, I ran into a couple who was looking for the Jordan trailhead to begin with. We ended up pooling our resources and taking the hike together. I gave them a ride to the Jordan trailhead and parked my car there, then they gave me a ride back to my car after. Worked out well for all of us.

The Jordan Trail took us through some nice scenery with some light climbing up and down along the way. The trail ends at a huge sinkhole called Devil's Kitchen near the start of the Soldier's Pass Trail. We took a nice long break at the sinkhole, before heading back to the intersection with the Cibola Pass Trail.

The Cibola Pass Trail seemed like a lot more climbing than the 100 feet of elevation the book claims. Maybe that's why the authors do this trail first, so they're going more downhill on Cibola. The book has Cibola rated as "easy" and Jordan rated as "moderate". I would have rated them the other way around. But again, maybe the order you do them makes all the difference.

After the hike, I headed into downtown in search of the latest edition of Sedona Hikes. The book is in color now, with a photo for each hike. I really like this as it gives you an idea of what to expect. They have a nice picture of Robber's Roost, which has somehow eluded me in the two times I've tried this "easy" hike. It almost makes me want to try it again.

The authors have also added GPS locations for each hike (guess I'll have to buy one of those things now). The number of hikes has been reduced to 130 down from 135 in the edition I had. It's sad that the number of trails in Sedona is declining, no doubt due to all the development in the area! The only complaint I have with the new edition of the book is that it's bigger and heavier than the old one. It won't fit into my backpack as easily, and will add a few ounces to my load.

Tomorrow, I plan to take my new hiking book, and possibly a new camera (another long story) and head out for an old favorite. While I'm making a concerted effort to hike some trails I haven't done before this trip, it just wouldn't be a trip to Sedona for me without a climb up Doe Mountain!