Wilson Canyon and Steamboat Rock

Most of the Skyliners, including the author, had never hiked Steamboat Rock, a very familiar Sedona landmark. Having decided to remedy this shortcoming, we scheduled an outing that would include a climb to Steamboat Rock along with a hike on Wilson Canyon Trail. After downloading what looked to be a good GPS track and the report of a previous hike from HikeArizona.com, we set out on 2 April 2016 with a great deal of confidence.

From Cottonwood, we drove north on SR 89A through Sedona and parked at the trailhead at Midgley Bridge. There were few cars when we arrived at 0740; however, later in the day this parking area is always packed tight with vehicles, so an early start is advised.

The 200-foot Midgley Bridge, constructed in 1938, served as the final link of the newly constructed State Highway 79 (now SR 89A) that connected Phoenix and Prescott to Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon, and Flagstaff.¹ The bridge carried (and still carries) traffic across the mouth of Wilson Canyon.

Midgley Bridge at Wilson Canyon in Oak Creek Canyon

According to Professor Amundson of Northern Arizona University, the road was designated as SR 79 in 1927 and became US 89A, an alternate route between Prescott and Flagstaff, in 1940. It lost its US designation in 1992 and became SR 89A. Before the bridge was constructed SR 79 ran north up Wilson Canyon from the present site of the bridge for about 0.3 miles before crossing the stream, by way of a much smaller bridge at the bottom of the canyon, and returning down the other side to the present roadbed. The old roadbed in the canyon still exists and can be hiked for its entire length. The old bridge is long gone but the abutments are still standing.

Old SR 79 Bridge in Wilson Canyon, used before Midgley Bridge was constructed

I have vague memories of traveling down Oak Creek Canyon some 56 years ago as a freshly-minted Navy Ensign on my way from Officers Candidate School in Rhode Island to report aboard the USS General W.A Mann (TAP-112) homeported at Fort Mason in San Francisco, now a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. I once thought that I had remembered crossing this old bridge on that long-ago journey. However, that would have been in 1962, long after Midgely Bridge was completed, so I must have been remembering some other sharp turn with a bridge crossing. I do vividly remember that the descent down Oak Creek Canyon seemed endless and I wondered if it might eventually descend into hell itself.

But back to today's hike. After parking at the trailhead we walked past a toilet (Yes. Facilities are provided and a Red Rock Pass is required to park here.). Just beyond the toilet and before a picnic pavilion are two trailhead signs on a single post (right), one pointing to the right for Wilson Mountain Trail #10 and one pointing straight ahead for Wilson Canyon Trail #47.

We continued straight ahead, following the bed of the old highway as it made its way toward the old bridge crossing in Wilson Canyon. After about 0.1 miles we came to a fork. Our trail angled to the right while the old SR 79 road continued straight ahead. A signpost (left) showed the way and provided the additional information that the same path would lead to Jim Thompson Trail.

About 0.4 miles from the point where Wilson Canyon Trail diverged from the old SR 79 roadbed we arrived at the intersection with Jim Thompson Trail. This 2.9-mile trail runs from Mormon Canyon, along the slope of the mountain below Steamboat Rock, to Wilson Canyon, connecting Brins Mesa Trail to Wilson Canyon Trail.

The Jim Thompson/Wilson Canyon Trail intersection marks the edge of the wilderness area. The rest of our hike in Wilson Canyon would be in the Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness. The vegetation in the canyon consisted primarily of Arizona cypress, scrub oak and manzanita. The well-worn trail follows closely along the wash, rising gently, as it makes its way up the canyon; we had tantalizing glimpses along the way of the steep cliff walls ahead. The rather dense tree cover meant that we were in the shade most of the time, not necessarily a good thing on this rather chilly, early-April morning.

Steep cliff walls ahead visible through the Arizona cypress, scrub oak and manzanita

Lila had suggested that we divert from the trail and climb Steamboat Rock on the way up the canyon rather than on the way back. However, as it turned out, the GPS track I was using was incorrect and we missed the turnoff. It showed the turnoff as being a short distance above the Jim Thompson Trailhead when, in practice, one actually turns on that trail and follows it for about 0.2 miles before starting the climb up the rock. The person who made the erroneous GPS track must have been part mountain goat; it went straight up a steep untracked, densely overgrown mountain slope.

As it were, we continued on up Wilson Canyon Trail for another 0.8 miles and came to a cairn (right) marking the official end of the trail. We did not turn back at this point because the report we were relying on said that a social trail led up the side of the canyon from this point. We found it just a few yards ahead and followed it, climbing out of the belt of Arizona cypress growing along the bottom of the canyon and continuing up the manzanita- and sumac-covered mountainside.

I paused along the way to photograph a pair of red-orange Indian paint brush blossoms (left) positioned in a bed of green tucked under a low-hanging manzanita branch. The social trail ended hard against the steep canyon wall after just 0.2 miles.

At the very end of the trail, the author and Jim McGinnis are shown  posed hard against the unscalable canyon wall (right). We had climbed about 150 feet to reach this point, so we rested there for a few minutes before starting our descent.

We paused at an open spot on the way back down the slope for a group photograph with the colorful red and yellow canyon walls in the background.

Left to right: Betty Wolters, Jim Gibson, Collene Maktenieks, Floyd Gardner, Loren Pritzel, Bob Rauen, Daisy Williams, Jim McGinnis, Lila Wright, Ellen McGinnis and George Everman

After descending back to the wash at the bottom of the canyon, we decided to push on upstream for a short distance. But before doing that we stopped for a photograph of two hikers who had missed the group photograph. Shown here (left) are Karl Sink (left) and Jerry Helfrich.

Just to the left of the two hikers shown above, a faint trail leaves the wash. We followed it for a short distance until it rejoined the streambed. After that, we just continued up the bed of the wash, noting an occasional cairn as we went. I am not sure what purpose the cairns served; they certainly were not needed to keep hikers on the trail as there was no trail. One just follows the wash, occasionally leaving it to climb around an obstruction.

I remembered seeing a number of western wallflowers on a May 2010 hike up the canyon and I was hoping to find more this time. But perhaps it was still too early for them because we found very few and then usually only a single flower at a time. The photograph (right) displays the best grouping of the flowers I found during today's hike.

Most of the hikers went only a short distance up the wash and stopped to wait at a sunny spot while Karl and I continued up the wash for 0.2 miles beyond the official end of the trail, ourselves turning back at the point shown here (left). 

Rejoining the group we all started back down the trail, looking closely for signs of the turnoff to Steamboat Rock. At this point, still not sure where to leave Wilson Canyon Trail, we were hoping to follow the GPS track. Eventually, however, we arrived back at the junction with Jim Thompson Trail without having found it. There we met a hiker who assured us that the trail to Steamboat Rock was accessed by way of Jim Thompson Trail. A little farther along we met two additional hikers who reinforced that message.

As we left Wilson Canyon, I was reminded of the words of Joe Bartels in a HikeArizona.com report dated 12 April 2012. Bartels wrote that Richard Wilson, for whom the canyon is named, while carrying an uncharged muzzle-loading rifle, chased a bear into the canyon in 1885. The bear turned on him and he took refuge in a juniper tree. However the bear pulled him out and killed him. He notes that there have since been reports that the canyon is haunted by Wilson's ghost.

Ghost or no, we were now safely out of Wilson Canyon and heading west on Jim Thompson Trail. We followed that trail for 0.2 miles before coming to the very obvious turn-off (right) to Steamboat Rock. The dead branches placed across the entrance to the path separate it from the main trail.

We now began to see more flowers, first an indigo (below left) closely followed by an indigo-blackfoot daisy bouquet (below right).

                               Indigo                                          Indigo-blackfoot daisy 

                                                                                    bouquet

Te climb to the top of Steamboat Rock is rated as a Yosemite Decimal System² Class 3, meaning that a fall could easily be fatal.

The difficulty of the climb is illustrated in the photograph (below) showing hikers making their way carefully up the steep slope.

Hikers making their way up the steep slope of Steamboat Rock

The photograph (below), taken from the upper slope of Steamboat Rock, shows Oak Creek Canyon framed by Wilson Mountain on the left and Indian Point on the right.

Oak Creek Canyon framed by Wilson Mountain (left) and Indian Point (right)

Moving carefully all the while, I inched my way up the slope, pausing and positioning myself securely before pulling my camera out to photograph flowers found along the way. Among those I saw on the climb were a mountain sunflower with one of those ubiquitous blackfoot daisies lurking in the background (below left) and a gorgeous, aromatic cliffrose in full bloom (below right).

                              Mountain sunflower and         Cliffrose

                              blackfoot daisy 

The deck of Steamboat consists of a large flat area with the boat's superstructure looming up ahead as shown in the photograph (below).

Superstructure as seen from the deck of Steamboat Rock

From the deck of Steamboat Rock we had a great view looking out over Sedona (below left) and down on Midgley Bridge (below right).

                               Sedona from Steamboat        Midgley Bridge from

                                                                                   Steamboat

Some of the hikers had stopped on the lower slope to eat lunch and wait for us to return, so we didn't linger long on the top. On the way back down I found a really good bladderpod specimen (below left) and then, alongside SR 89A on the way home, a quite attractive clump of globemallow (below right).

                               Bladderpod                                Globemallow

According to my GPS, this hike, shown in red on the included map (following), was 4.9 miles out and back. The highest elevation was 5228 feet and the total ascent was 1537 feet.

1 By Michael Amundson, Professor of History, NAU. Published in the Arizona Sun Times on 7 October 2014. Available at: http://azdailysun.com/news/local/midgley-bridge-cause-for-celebration/article_68b859b6-a45b-5fe0-b5a0-ec7c5f41fe21.html

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_Decimal_System