Thursday, February 19, 2009

Snoopy Rock Sedona

On one of out many winter escapes to Arizona's sunshine and warmth we decided to spend a few days in the Sedona Red Rock area. The purpose was a couple of days hiking and exploring. We landed in a reasonably nice hotel just along the highway that had a large room and deck outside with a brief view of the famous Red Rock. While you can’t see the Rock from this camera angle this was our deck for a couple of days.

From Snoopy Rock

We were just south of downtown Sedona and our hotel was backed up to a decent hiking trail that was out out back door. So the first hike we didn’t even have to drive the car. We just walked out the door and 50 yards from the parking lot we were headed into Red Rock country

From Snoopy Rock

Some of the Indian legends say that these strange stone formations are really the frozen bodies of their ancestors. Looks like strange rocks to me.

From Snoopy Rock

After winding around for a while we stared following an old creek bed to get closer to the strange rocks. Even though I caught hell for leaving the trail from the woman pictured below. (watch out for snakes!)

From Snoopy Rock

The creek lead us to some interesting formation where the water had eroded holes and swirls in the soft sandstone.

From Snoopy Rock

During hard rains the creek fills up and the moving water causes the rocks you see in the hole to swirl around and dig the hole deeper

From Snoopy Rock

As we got closer to the rock cliffs we ran across a couple from Germany just sitting on a stone enjoying the serenity of the beautiful Sedona countryside. We struck up a conversation with them. They came here every year to bask in the mystical properties of the Sedona area for a couple of weeks. They seemed to know a lot about the area and eventually we learned that we were very close to a well known local landmark call Snoopy Rock.

From Snoopy Rock

It seems that if you look from the east or the west at the rock bluff we were approaching and used a bit of imagination… Well alright a lot of imagination you can see the outline of Snoopy laying on his dog house at the tip of the bluff.

From Snoopy Rock

A little closer. Can you see the grey rock that is the tip of his nose?

From Snoopy Rock

Looks like there is a trail up there. We had better go check out Snoopy close up. Hey you didn’t expect we could actually do a hike without climbing up on something high did you?

From Snoopy Rock

The view is starting to get a little better as we move up the side of the bluff towards Snoopy. You can see strange lava formation down on the valley floor.

From Snoopy Rock

Does it look like Snoopy yet?

From Snoopy Rock

A much closer view of the frozen ancient Indian ancestors.

From Snoopy Rock

Not sure what this is, but its interesting.

From Snoopy Rock

At last the top of Snoopy’s dog house and we can see downtown Sedona

From Snoopy Rock

Time for summit pictures even though it wasn’t much of a summit

From Snoopy Rock
From Snoopy Rock

Margaret did manage to snag a small souvenir rock from Snoopy’s ass end

From Snoopy Rock



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing... Mom