Day 8 - Saturday, May 19th, Cottonwood to Flagstaff, AZ

Distance: 46.8 miles

Elevation Gain: +5093 ft. or 108.8 ft./mile

Net elevation change: +3582 ft.

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Today was another low mileage, high climbing day with nearly 5100 feet over 47 miles.  Using feet per mile as a gauge of difficulty, it is the toughest day of the tour at 109 feet per mile and a net elevation change of nearly 3700 feet, with about 2000 of that occurring over a 12-mile stretch starting around the 22-mile mark.

It is another gorgeous day that is cool at the start and, as it warms up, the favorable tail winds keep it very comfortable. The road out of town looks a lot like the previous two days.

We enter the Coconino National Forest about two miles in and shortly after that we get a reminder that today will be different as we will be entering Red Rock Country. 

Coconino National Forest (CNF) covers 1.9 million acres and contains a variety of landscapes including alpine tundra, deserts, flatlands, mesas, pine forests and volcanic peaks. CNF surrounds Sedona and Flagstaff and the forest borders four other national forests; the Prescott National Forest to the southwest that we passed through yesterday, the Tonto National Forest to the south, the Apache-Sitgreaveas National Forest to the southeast and the Kaibab National Forest to the west and northwest.  These forests total about 7.5 millions acres, over 11,700 square miles, nearly half the size of West Virginia and larger than Maryland.

Around the 12-mile mark we pass the turn off for Red Rock Loop Road, the entrance to the Red Rock State Park.  Red Rock State Park is located outside Sedona and features a red sandstone canyon that has been featured in a number of movies including Rocky Mountain (1950), Fort Defiance (1950), Red Mountain (1951), Escape from Fort Bravo (1953) and The Hallelujah Trail (1965).  It is a day use park and its primary purpose is to preserve the habitat along the Oak Creek.  The park only came into existence in 1991. The land was originally part of the Smoke Trail Ranch which was purchased in 1941 by Jack Frye, the then president of Trans World Airlines. Jack died in 1959 but his wife Helen continued to hold the land until she sold a 330 acre parcel to a development company. Development efforts never really progressed and in 1980 a group of people were hiking along Oak Creek when they were stopped and told the were trespassing. One of the hikers happened to be the governor of Arizona, Bruce Babbitt who recognized that the area had potential as a state park.  It took another 11 years and three-way land swap for the park to become a reality.

Another couple of miles down the road and we enter the outskirts of Sedona passing the Red Rock High School complex. West Sedona comes at about mile 16 followed by the center of Sedona at mile 19. Some shots of the ride into Sedona. I'm not going to say much at this point, because the scenery speaks for itself.  The ride today has been, and is likely to remain, the prettiest and most stunning of the entire tour. I just wish I had a proper camera, but that is too much to lug around every day.

In the heart of Sedona there are numerous shops and restaurants, and on a beautiful Saturday, traffic and pedestrians. On the right there is a scenic overlook of sorts that has several "stations", each containing a summary of a movie that was filmed in the area.

Sedona has a population of about 10,400 and was named after Sedona Arabella Miller Schnebly (1877–1950), the wife of Theodore Carlton Schnebly, the city's first postmaster. When the post office was opened in 1902 there were 55 residents and the early settlers were farmers and ranchers.  Sedona began to develop as a tourist, vacation, retirement destination in the 1950's and most of the development that can be seen today was done in the 1980's and 1990's.  The main attraction of Sedona is the red sandstone formations which  appear to glow when illuminated by the rising or setting sun. Sedona has been part of over 60 movies including one of my favorites, 3:10 to Yuma. Alas, the audience often didn’t know this, as the location was portrayed as Texas, California, Nevada and even Canada.

By mile 20 we are clear of Sedona proper and our route, more or less, runs parallel to Oak Creek which runs through Oak Creek Canyon, a 12-mile long river gorge often described as a smaller cousin to the Grand Canyon because of its scenic beauty. The Oak Canyon/Sedona area is the second most popular tourist destination in Arizona behind the Grand Canyon. Its width ranges from 0.8 to 2.5 miles and its depth ranges from 800 to 2000 feet. Oak Creek is largely responsible for carving the canyon and it is a tributary of the Verde river which it joins up with about 6 miles southeast of Cottonwood.

Above is my stop to refuel before taking on the the 2 mile climb to the SAG stop.

 

For the most part the ride so far has been a combination of straight pavement with a curve or two thrown in.  This changes about mile 32 where the road gets more serpentine with a series of switchbacks that culminates at the Oak Creek Vista and Native American Craft Market at about mile 34, our SAG stop for the day. My apologies for the smudge on the lens.

With all the preceding twists and turns I expected this to be the high elevation mark of the day, but we still have just under 600 more feet to go. But we were done with the switchbacks and by comparison it was a straight shot from here into Flagstaff.

Sneak Peek at Tomorrow

Our first rest day will give us all time to get some real world things done. Laundry and bike cleaning are the top priority of many. Personally I would like to drive up to the Grand Canyon, but I'm not sure I'll have the energy to find a rental car, get the rental car and make the 180 mile round trip.  The tour is physically demanding, but as I have a realized writing this post, the mental demand might be greater. For the past eight days I have been concentrating on riding, eating, resting and thinking about the next days' ride. Only now have I realized that I don't have to think about tomorrow. It might just be a day to chill.