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Sedona,
Arizona ATV & SxS Desert Riding Adventure
::Continued::
Shortly after Foxboro Lake the trail makes a
dead end. After we wrapped up our photo shoot
we made our way back in the direction we came
and headed back into town.
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After
checking out Schebly Hill Road, we headed
several miles west of town to Soldier Pass
Trail, which was a true off-road trail with
rocky climbs and tight trails. It is a short
trail, but offers plenty of scenic spot
to stop & relax, so it took us over
an hour to explore the trail |
Next on our to-do-list was to explore the Soldier
Pass Trail. Named after General Cook, it is said
that this trail was used to move the Apache Indians
to reservations between 1871 and 1875. Immediately
after turning onto Soldier Pass Trail you can
see Coffee Pot Rock and Thunder Mountain that
towers over 6,000 feet above the desert floor.
It was fun trying to guess which rock formation
was which as every formation has a different interpretation
for each person.
The Soldier Pass Trail is much tighter than on
Schebly Hill Road and is lined with Arizona Cypress.
I was surprised how popular the short trail was
as many of the tour Jeeps made there way down
the trail as well. Even though the Soldier Pass
takes less than 30 minutes to navigate, there
are many sites to stop at including the Seven
Sacred Pools, and the Devil’s Kitchen.
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Devil’s
kitchen sinkhole is a giant sink hole that
is a right along the trail |
The
Sphinx shaped rock formation is right along
the Soldier Pass trail |
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Seven Sacred
Pools
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The Seven Sacred Pools were created by water
run off that craved out the circular holes in
the sand stone. After thousands of years of rocks
and debris swirling in these holes they continued
to grow in size. Only a few minutes drive from
the Seven Sacred Pools is the Devil’s Kitchen.
Over 70 million years ago seismic activity in
the area caused cracks in the sand and limestone
that allowed water run off to leak down into underground
caverns. Eventually, the water eroded the caverns
and the rocks above collapsed in on itself creating
a giant sinkhole. If you are afraid of heights
I wouldn’t go standing on the edge of the
Devil’s kitchen sinkhole! However, while
at the Devil’s Kitchen you can look up and
see another rock formation called the Sphinx which
resembles the Egyptian Sphinx.
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