Bell Rock and Couthouse Butte
The morning started bright and early – a bit too early in fact. An early night last night didn’t help the jet lag turn around so I was mostly awake at 4 am – dozing off and on until 6 am when I gave up and got out of bed. The group met at 7 for breakfast – hot breakfast served by the hotel.
After breakfast we decided that our first hike would be around Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte. Driving from Camp Verde to Bell Rock took about 20-25 minutes. I was amazed at how much the scenery changed in that short distance. Camp Verde is what I think of as High Desert – lots of browns – some green. Short vegetation. I was surprised at the number of trees that I saw – but of course it doesn’t compare to Virginia and the Blue Ridge. Once in Sedona, the Red Rocks just jump out at you. The Buttes are immense – awesome, really. On this 10-ish mile hike, I took 90 pictures with the camera, and 32 pictures with the phone! Every time you made a turn in the trail, the buttes just looked DIFFERENT. Sometimes the angle, sometimes just the way the light is hitting the rocks, sometimes the shadows….. always different.
We started from the parking lot at Bell Rock Vista, staying to the right on Big Park Loop for 1.7 miles. This trail took us around the West side of Courthouse Butte. It is a moderate uphill climb along a well marked and easy to follow trail. It crossed stream beds, even following them occasionally. I stopped a couple of hikers who happened to be locals and asked why the stream beds were dry, and when would be the best time to hike and find water in them…. I apparently humored them – they laughed and then explained that the only time they would have water in them would be during times of hard rains – and then it would be because of the flash flooding. I don’t think I am going to wait around for that!
Once we reached the far side of Courthouse Butte, we took a right on Llama Trail for 1.6 miles. This trail wasn’t as well marked, or as easy to follow. Twice we crossed an expanse of rock, following a path that had bike tracks and seemed like the right way to go. However, they narrowed and petered out so we would turn around and head back to find the correct way to go.
From there, we headed left on Bail Trail to start make our loop. This short .4 mile trail gave us great views of Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte. We turned left onto Bell Rock Trail for .5 miles. We detoured off the Bell Rock Trail to pick up the Phone trail (.3 miles) toward the parking area at Courthouse Vista. We made this detur to find a geocache! My first in AZ! After finding the cache, we hiked up the Bell Loop trail. .4 miles up the loop, we detoured off the loop to climb Bell Rock. Not the easiest rock scramble – we had to help each other up the rocks in a coupl of places. I don’t think it was as difficult as some I have climbed (the Old Rag Rock Scramble in ShenandoahNational Park, for example), however it wasn’t easy.
I don’t know exactly where the Vortex is on top of Bell Rock – I had a couple of people give me slightly different areas. When I got almost to the top, I suddenly had this wave of nausea and dizziness overtake m
e. I had to sit. I couldn’t stand. At first, I thought it was the strain for climbing that bit of rock face, or suddenly looking down at the valley. The thing is that I had stayed well hydrated and I have never had a problem with heights before. Once the nausea and dizziness passed, I was fine. I was walking around that ledge and getting pictures – with no problems. Maybe it was the vortex 🙂
We scrambled back down Bell Rock and finished the last .4 miles of the Bell Rock Loop to pick up the Bell Rock Trail again. Another 1.2 miles, mostly downhill back to the parking area rounded out the trip.
After hiking, we headed back to the hotel, stopping at Dairy Queen for a treat. Once back at the hotel, we showered and spent some time sitting by the pool before heading out to dinner.
We drove into Cottonwood for dinner – a bit of a fiasc0. Most of the restaurants seem to close down by 8pm – or earlier. We tried three before we could find one that could seat us. We ended up at Plaza Bonita Mexican Family Restaurant by the Best Western. It was really good!
