Trail status details in this guide reflect conditions at the time of writing and can shift quickly, so always confirm with an official source before you drive out.
Sedona has over a hundred marked trails packed into a small stretch of the Coconino National Forest, and almost every guide online recommends the same six or seven names. This guide covers those names honestly, including where they fall short, and then goes further into the trails that locals actually return to on a quiet Tuesday morning. It also does something most Sedona trail guides skip entirely. It tells you what is genuinely open right now, because a wildfire has changed the map for part of the northwest side of town this season, and hiking here in 2026 means checking conditions before you check a map.
Quick answers before you plan anything
- Permit needed at most trailheads: Red Rock Pass, 5 dollars a day, 15 dollars a week, or 20 dollars a year.
- Best months to hike: March through May and late September through November.
- Best beginner trail: Bell Rock Pathway.
- Best all around showpiece hike: Cathedral Rock, if you can handle a short steep scramble.
- Best hidden gem for a quiet morning: Turkey Creek Trail.
- Right now: a wildfire northwest of town has closed several Dry Creek Road corridor trails and all of Oak Creek Canyon. Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Airport Mesa, and most southeast side trails remain open.
What is covered in this guide
- Current trail conditions in Sedona this season
- Permits, passes, and the shuttle system
- The iconic trails, reviewed honestly
- Nine hidden gem trails most guides skip
- Best time of year and time of day
- Trail difficulty and distance at a glance
- What locals know that guidebooks do not
- Sample one day and three day plans
- Frequently asked questions
Current trail conditions in Sedona this season
Read this before you drive out
A wildfire called the Pocket Fire started on June 19, 2026 in the Coconino National Forest north of Sedona, in the Oak Creek Canyon area. By the first week of July it had grown to over 25,000 acres with containment climbing past 30 percent, and crews expect it to remain on the map in some form until the summer monsoon fully arrives. Stage 2 fire restrictions are in effect across the Coconino National Forest, which means no campfires anywhere outside developed sites, including camp stoves in some zones, so check current restriction levels before any overnight trip.
Here is what that means for hikers as of this writing. Oak Creek Canyon along State Route 89A is closed between Sedona and the Flagstaff side, which takes West Fork, Slide Rock State Park, Cave Springs, Bootlegger, and Pine Flat off the table for now. On the northwest side of town, closures follow the Dry Creek Road corridor, affecting the trailheads and access roads for Boynton Canyon, Fay Canyon, Doe Mountain, Long Canyon and Vultee Arch, Mescal, and the Aerie trail system.
The good news is that the entire southeast and east side of Sedona is open and unaffected. Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Courthouse Butte, Airport Mesa, Munds Wagon Trail, Broken Arrow, and Marg's Draw are all running normally, and Uptown Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek are open for business as usual. Smoke tends to settle overnight and clear by midday, so if anyone in your group has asthma or another breathing sensitivity, plan indoor mornings and save trails for the afternoon.
Because this changes by the week, do not treat this section as a permanent map. Check the Coconino National Forest alerts page, the City of Sedona news releases page, and a live tracking tool such as Watch Duty on the morning of your hike. If you are reading this well after July 2026, most or all of these closures have likely lifted, but it is worth a thirty second check before you commit to a trailhead on the northwest side of town.
Permits, passes, and the shuttle system
Get this part right first, because a surprising number of visitors lose an hour of daylight circling for parking or getting a ticket they did not expect.
The Red Rock Pass
Most trailheads managed by the Coconino National Forest around Sedona require a Red Rock Pass displayed on your dashboard. It costs 5 dollars for a day, 15 dollars for a week, or 20 dollars for a year, and you can buy it at credit card kiosks right at most trailheads, at the Sedona Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center, or online through Recreation.gov, where you register your license plate instead of printing anything. A quick quirk worth knowing: if you are stopping for fifteen minutes or less to take a photo, no pass is required, but anything longer needs one displayed or citations do get issued.
An America the Beautiful federal pass works in place of a Red Rock Pass at almost every site, with one exception. It does not cover concessionaire run day use areas such as Crescent Moon Ranch, Grasshopper Point, or the West Fork trailhead at Call of the Canyon. Those sites use a separate Coconino Hospitality Annual Pass, priced at 50 dollars a year, which replaced the older Grand Annual Pass.
The mandatory shuttle days
From Thursday through Sunday, roughly 7 in the morning to 5:30 in the evening, private vehicle parking closes at five of the busiest trailheads: Cathedral Rock, Little Horse, Soldier Pass, Dry Creek Vista, and Mescal. During those hours you must arrive by the free Sedona Shuttle from one of the designated park and ride lots. No reservation or ticket is needed and the ride is free, including a small bike rack for three bikes on a first come basis. Outside shuttle hours, or Monday through Wednesday, normal trailhead parking reopens at these same lots.
If you are visiting on a Monday through Wednesday and still want the popular trailheads, arrive before 7 in the morning. Lots at Cathedral Rock and Devil's Bridge access points routinely fill by 9 in the morning during spring and fall.
The iconic trails, reviewed honestly
Cathedral Rock (open now)
This is the trail on every Sedona postcard, and it earns the reputation. It is short at under 1.5 miles round trip, but the final push is a genuine hand over hand scramble over slickrock, not a casual stroll, so wear shoes with real grip. Most guides tell you to go for sunset. A lesser known move is to start at first light instead. You get softer color on the rock face, a nearly empty saddle at the top, and you avoid the shuttle requirement entirely since early morning falls just before the mandatory shuttle window kicks in on Thursday through Sunday.
Bell Rock Pathway and Courthouse Butte Loop (open now)
A flat, wide, easy path that circles two of the most photographed formations in Sedona, and genuinely good for families or a first Sedona hike. Almost nobody mentions the short spur out to Submarine Rock, a broad slickrock dome just off the main loop that gives you a private feeling overlook of Courthouse Butte without any scrambling at all.
Devil's Bridge (access currently affected)
The largest natural sandstone arch near Sedona and one of the most photographed spots in the state. As of this writing, the most common access route off Dry Creek Road falls inside the Pocket Fire closure zone, so confirm status before you plan around it. When it is open, go early. The line for a photo standing on the arch itself can stretch past thirty minutes by midmorning in peak season.
Boynton Canyon and the Subway Cave (access currently affected)
A long, scenic canyon trail with a well known vortex site and an unofficial side trail up to a cave formation locally nicknamed the Subway Cave for its curved tunnel shape. This access road also falls inside the current closure zone. Worth noting for later: the unofficial cave route is a fragile social trail, not a maintained Forest Service path, so when it reopens, stay single file, avoid widening the trail, and skip geotagging the exact turnoff, since concentrated visitation is already eroding the approach.
West Fork Trail (currently closed)
Widely considered one of the most beautiful canyon walks in Arizona, following Oak Creek through towering walls and multiple creek crossings. It sits inside Oak Creek Canyon, which is fully closed along with the rest of the canyon corridor while the Pocket Fire is active. This is a firm miss for now, not a maybe.
Nine hidden gem trails most guides skip
These are the trails that rarely make a top ten list, either because they are genuinely under the radar or because they got buried under the same six famous names every article repeats. Two are currently inside the fire closure zone and are marked accordingly, but they are worth bookmarking for when access returns.
1. Turkey Creek Trail (open now)
Overshadowed completely by Cathedral Rock and Little Horse nearby, this quiet route runs through open desert meadow and piñon juniper forest with multiple access points. It is one of the few moderate length Sedona trails that is genuinely dog friendly on leash, and spring brings brittlebush, penstemon, and lupine wildflowers along the ridgeline.
2. Secret Slickrock (open now)
Tucked near the busy Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte area, this short walk lands you on a wide expanse of open slickrock with a front row view of Cathedral Rock across the valley. Most visitors walk right past the unmarked turnoff on their way to the main loop. It is one of the better sunset spots in Sedona that does not require a scramble or a shuttle.
3. Marg's Draw (open now)
A short trail that starts almost inside town yet feels fully removed from it within ten minutes. It connects into the larger Broken Arrow trail system, making it easy to extend into a longer loop if you want more mileage, or keep it short as a quick evening walk.
4. Jim Thompson Trail (open now)
Named after an early Sedona settler, this historic route follows part of an old wagon road and delivers a genuinely different angle on Steamboat Rock and the Sedona skyline than the standard tourist viewpoints. It gets a fraction of the foot traffic of trails half its quality.
5. Munds Wagon Trail to Schnebly Hill (open now)
This follows the actual historic stagecoach route once used to move goods between Sedona and Flagstaff before the modern highway existed. It climbs steadily to views of the balanced sandstone formation known locally as Merry Go Round Rock, with a fraction of the crowd density of Cathedral Rock despite arguably comparable views.
6. Broken Arrow to Chicken Point (open now)
Famous as a Pink Jeep tour stop, this slickrock viewpoint is fully hikeable on foot and almost never gets covered as a hiking trail in guides that only mention it as a jeep tour destination. The open slickrock bowl at Chicken Point gives sweeping views in every direction for a relatively modest walk in.
7. Yavapai Vista connector paths (open now)
A handful of short connector trails near the Bell Rock corridor along Highway 179 that most visitors drive straight past. They link into longer loops if you want to build your own low traffic route away from the main Bell Rock crowd.
8. Vultee Arch via Long Canyon (currently inside the closure zone)
A shaded canyon walk to a lesser known natural arch, named for aviation pioneer Gerard Vultee, whose 1938 plane crash occurred near this canyon. It is a genuinely quiet alternative to Devil's Bridge with real history behind the name. Access currently falls inside the Pocket Fire closure area, so treat this as a save for later rather than a this week plan.
9. Doe Mountain (currently inside the closure zone)
A short, steep climb to a flat mesa top with a full 360 degree view and noticeably fewer hikers than nearby Fay Canyon or Bell Rock. Wildlife sightings including black bear have been reported from the summit in recent years. Access road currently sits inside the closure zone, so check status before planning around it.
Best time of year and time of day
Spring, from March through May, and fall, from late September through November, bring the most comfortable daytime temperatures and the clearest light for photography, which is also why trailhead lots fill fastest in those windows. Summer, June through August, regularly pushes past 100 degrees Fahrenheit by midmorning, so the only sane strategy is to be on trail before 7 in the morning and off it before noon. Summer afternoons also bring monsoon thunderstorms, typically from early July through September, and these can trigger flash floods in narrow washes and canyons even when the sky above the trailhead looks clear, because the storm may be dumping rain miles upstream. Winter, December through February, is genuinely underrated. Crowds thin out significantly, and an occasional dusting of snow on red rock is one of the more striking and least photographed versions of Sedona, though shaded, north facing sections of trail can hold ice, so microspikes are worth carrying.
Trail difficulty and distance at a glance
| Trail | Distance | Difficulty | Status this season |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bell Rock Pathway | 3.6 miles round trip | Easy | Open |
| Cathedral Rock | 1.4 miles round trip | Hard, short scramble | Open |
| Courthouse Butte Loop | 4 miles round trip | Easy to moderate | Open |
| Munds Wagon Trail | 7 miles round trip to Merry Go Round Rock | Moderate | Open |
| Broken Arrow to Chicken Point | 4 miles round trip | Moderate | Open |
| Marg's Draw | 3 to 4 miles depending on loop | Easy to moderate | Open |
| Jim Thompson Trail | 4.5 miles one way | Moderate | Open |
| Turkey Creek Trail | Up to 6.4 miles round trip | Moderate | Open |
| Airport Loop | 3.2 miles round trip | Easy to moderate | Open |
| Devil's Bridge | 4.2 miles round trip | Moderate | Check access |
| Boynton Canyon | 6.1 miles round trip | Moderate | Check access |
| Doe Mountain | 1.5 miles round trip | Moderate, steep | Check access |
| Vultee Arch | 3.5 miles round trip | Easy to moderate | Check access |
| West Fork Trail | 7.2 miles round trip | Easy to moderate | Closed, in canyon closure |
What locals know that guidebooks do not
- The red color across Sedona comes from a coating of iron oxide on the Schnebly Hill Formation sandstone, laid down roughly 300 million years ago, sitting above the older, paler Supai Group rock you will notice at the base of several canyons.
- Several so called vortex sites and cave features across Sedona sit on or near land considered sacred by the Yavapai Apache and Hopi peoples. Stay on marked paths, never touch or disturb dwelling sites or petroglyphs if you come across them, and consider signing the Sedona Cares Pledge before your trip.
- Rattlesnakes are active roughly April through October, most often in the warmer hours of morning and late afternoon. Watch where you place your hands on rock scrambles like Cathedral Rock.
- Javelina and mule deer are common on lower elevation trails, and occasional mountain lion sightings are reported in the backcountry wilderness areas, so keep dogs leashed and food secured.
- Several unofficial social trails, including the popular cave routes, are not maintained by the Forest Service and are actively eroding from overuse. Hiking single file and avoiding geotagged exact locations helps these spots survive.
- Phone signal drops out on a surprising number of trails once you are more than a mile from a trailhead. Download offline maps before you leave cell coverage in town.
Sample one day and three day plans
One day, first time visit
- Early morning: Cathedral Rock at sunrise, before shuttle hours begin.
- Midday: Bell Rock Pathway with the Submarine Rock spur, shaded lunch break at a Village of Oak Creek cafe.
- Late afternoon: Airport Loop for sunset views over West Sedona.
Three days, deeper trip
- Day one: Bell Rock Pathway, Courthouse Butte Loop, Secret Slickrock at sunset.
- Day two: Munds Wagon Trail up to Merry Go Round Rock in the morning, Marg's Draw in the late afternoon.
- Day three: Broken Arrow to Chicken Point, then Turkey Creek Trail if you want a quiet finish away from crowds. Swap in Devil's Bridge or Doe Mountain in place of day three if the Dry Creek Road corridor has reopened by the time you visit.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a permit to hike in Sedona
Yes, at most trailheads managed by the Coconino National Forest. A Red Rock Pass costs 5 dollars a day, 15 dollars a week, or 20 dollars a year, and an America the Beautiful federal pass works as a substitute at nearly every site except a handful of concessionaire run day use areas.
Which Sedona hike is best for beginners
Bell Rock Pathway is flat, wide, well marked, and offers constant views of two major formations without any scrambling, which makes it the easiest genuinely scenic option in town.
Can you hike in Sedona during summer
Yes, but plan around the heat. Start before 7 in the morning, carry more water than you think you need, and be off exposed trail before the early afternoon monsoon storms and peak heat arrive.
How many days do you need to properly hike Sedona
Two to three full days lets you cover the well known highlights along with two or three hidden gem trails without rushing, though a single well planned day can still hit three strong trails if time is limited.
Are Sedona trails dog friendly
Many are, with a leash required at all times, though a few sensitive or narrow scramble sections such as the final push up Cathedral Rock are difficult or unsafe for most dogs.
Is Devil's Bridge worth the hype
Generally yes for the payoff at the arch itself, though it is one of the more crowded hikes in Sedona, and access currently depends on whether the Dry Creek Road corridor closure related to this season's wildfire has lifted.
What is the hardest hike in Sedona
Trails like Bear Mountain and the summit push on Cathedral Rock are widely considered the most physically demanding standard routes near town, involving steep elevation gain and, in Cathedral Rock's case, exposed rock scrambling.
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