This Sedona hike lives up to its thrilling name. How to hike the Cliffhanger Trail
In a nutshell, the Cliffhanger Trail does what it says. The edge-hugging multiuse trail in west Sedona lives up to its name with a thrilling and scenic trip through a creek-scoured corner of Coconino National Forest where the courses of Oak, Dry and Turkey creeks collide.
While Cliffhanger is billed as an OHV trail, it’s more of a hybrid. Part of its forked route shares space with the 15-mile Lime Kiln Trail that runs between Red Rock and Dead Horse Ranch state parks with one fork leading to a nonmotorized footpath that lands at a secluded floodplain on Oak Creek.
The hike starts at the OHV trailhead with a short walk on Forest Road 9845A. At the bottom of a rise at a green gate, the road bends left and joins the Lime Kiln Trail that’s marked by basket cairns (rock piles wired into pillars).
The route is also indicated with orange Cliffhanger Trail posts. The road continues downhill on a moderate grade through classic high-desert vegetation.
Yucca, red barberry, prickly pear cactus, catclaw and gray thorn line the russet, rocky trail. At the 1.5-mile point, the road crosses Dry Creek.
Strewn with colorful boulders, there’s rarely any surface water, but a leafy fringe of cottonwoods, sycamores, desert willows and cypress trees springing from the sandy soils soak up subterranean moisture. Beyond the creek, the route swings back uphill on one of a continual string of ups and downs that adds up to over 1,100 feet of total elevation change for the hike.
With the serpentine course of Dry Creek below and views of Sedona rock formations all around, the road is hacked from red sandstone cliffs with steep drop-offs. Except for the occasional juniper or piñon pine, there’s little shade.
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That’s why it's important to choose a cool day and take plenty of water on this hike. At the 2-mile point, the road splits. Lime Kiln Trail veers left following the north fork of Cliffhanger. Forest Road 9845N, the south fork of the Cliffhanger Trail, heads right.
For this trip, follow Forest Road 9845N as it rounds a knoll before starting its dive down to Oak Creek. This leg vacillates between canyon-bound grasslands and high points with views of the Bradshaw Mountains topping out at a sharp right bend where the route makes a severe dive on a rough, tiered track. Below, a brilliant band of green indicates the Oak Creek corridor.
The short, steep section lands in a pocket of juniper woodland where the road suddenly changes from rusty red to powdery gray. Up ahead at 3.3 miles, a green gate bars motorized access to the remainder of Forest Road 9845N. Hikers, bikers and equestrians are welcome to trudge the last 0.4 miles. Tracing Oak Creek, the deeply rutted narrow road progresses to the hike’s lowest point, a grassy meadow hemmed in by the creek and vertical cliffs.
A native stone foundation and low walls that might have been a cabin or corral stand on the creek’s west bank.
The stone ruins make for a good turnaround point. Forest Road 9845N continues a short distance through the meadow, and another faded dirt track, Forest Road 9845R, offers a weedy walk through a quiet high-desert creek corridor.
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Sedona hikes: Cliffhanger Trail
Length: 7.4 miles round trip.
Rating: Moderate.
Elevation: 4,085-3,708 feet (1,100 feet of accumulated elevation change).
Getting there: From the State Route 179/89A traffic circle in uptown Sedona, go 8 miles west (toward Cottonwood) on SR 89A to the Cliffhanger OVH trailhead (Forest Road 9845A) on the left. This is directly across from the Sedona Wetlands Preserve near mile marker 366.
Details: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/coconino/recarea/?recid=83430.
Read more of Mare Czinar's hikes at http://arizonahiking.blogspot.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Best hikes in Sedona: Cliffhanger and Lime Kiln trails
