Templeton Trail to Cathedral Rock

Jim Manning planned and led this hike to Cathedral Rock on 25 October 2014. It was planned as a short hike to be followed by a party at Jim's house in honor of several hikers who had recently or soon would be celebrating their seventieth birthday. These were Lila, Daisy, Miriam and Jim himself.

From Cottonwood, we drove to the Village of Oak Creek, turned west on Verde Valley School Road and continued for about 5.2 miles before parking in the Baldwin Trail parking area. The lot is on the left side of the road but the trailhead is on the right, so one parks and then crosses the road to start hiking. Of course crossing a rural dirt road is not usually very difficult or hazardous.

Before leaving the parking area we posed for a group photograph. We were thirteen strong today; however, two hikers choose to remain unidentified. The remaining eleven are shown below.

Left to right: Donna Goodman, Jim Manning, Miriam Sterling, Anita Jackson, Daisy Williams, Frank Lombardo, Betty Wolters, Dolly Yapp, Samantha Moor, the author and Gary Jacobson – photograph by Name withheld

We crossed the road and found one of those old, rusted, but seemingly indestructible metal signs (right) marking the Baldwin Trailhead. To reach the Templeton Trailhead we would need to hike about 0.7 miles along Baldwin.

Baldwin was a well-marked and well-used trail (left). I would not, however, wish to hike it during wet weather. The surface was worn into that fine, powdery dust that one sees in the Red Rock area and which, when wet, sticks to boots like glue.

We descended to the Oak Creek flood plain and found ourselves in a small, lovely meadow between the creek and a red rock cliff.

Small meadow in Oak Creek floodplain

Today the trail was dry, the hiking easy and we were shortly at the clearly-marked start of Templeton Trail (right). At this point Baldwin Trail heads up a wash that separates a separate 4400 foot butte from Cathedral Rock proper, circles around that butte, and returns to the starting point.

Templeton Trail, on the other hand, continued at an angle on toward Oak Creek. Just past the Templeton/Baldwin Trail junction a spider had apparently spent the night weaving an intricate web (left) between some twigs and two strands of barbed wire. The web fairly glistened in the morning sun and I could imagine the proprietor sitting somewhere in the maze congratulating himself on his excellent handiwork. Or do spiders appreciate beauty; perhaps they just take a utilitarian view of everything.

We next came to an area where the canyon walls closed in and we were squeezed between the cliff and the creek (right). The trail now turned to the right and slanted up the cliff wall at a fairly decent slope. However, it was still well-defined and the footing was good, and there were a number of switchbacks to alleviate the climbing. All in all, it was not a very difficult climb.

The two photographs below show the start of the climb and the first of the five switchbacks that would take us to the shelf running along the foot of Cathedral Rock that was our goal.

Start of climb from Oak Creek

  First of five switchbacks

After rounding the last switchback, the trail followed a shelf (or ledge) around the northeast side of Cathedral Rock. Looking ahead to the southeast we had a clear view of Courthouse Butte outlined against the morning sky in the distance.

Courthouse Butte outlined against the morning sky

About 0.2 miles after reaching the ledge we stopped for a snack where the trail made a sharp bend as it dipped into and back out of a deep indentation eroded into the wall of the mountain. Just above us a small juniper (left) clung tenaciously to the cliff face, defying both wind and drought.

The trail had pretty much been ours thus far. However, soon after continuing from our snack break, we were joined by several other hikers and also by a large number of bikers. I wondered “where did they all so suddenly come from,” a question that was soon answered when we came first to the Cathedral Trail crossing and then, a short distance, away a junction with the Easybreezy Trail. Even farther ahead is the HT Trail crossing. Hikers and bikers from all of these feeder trails use Templeton Trail to transit from one trail to another.

Although we spent a great deal of time stepping off the trail to let bikers pass and avoid bumping into other hikers, the views were well worth it.

Panoramic view of Cathedral Rock

After seeing this much of Templeton Trail, I am determined to do the rest of it in the future, perhaps even including a climb on up Cathedral Rock Trail.

Jim had done an excellent job by selecting a hike that would both be enjoyable and give us a good workout while still allowing us to finish in time to enjoy the birthday party for the bumper crop of 70 year old hikers.

According to my GPS, the round trip hike was 5 miles, the highest elevation was 4173 feet and the total ascent was 702 feet.

Our track is shown in red on the included map (see next page).