Jim Thompson Trail 124

On 1 May 2010, we hiked on Jim Thompson Trail at Sedona. Eight of us (Carol Burtt, Anita Jackson, Betty Wolters, John McInerney, Lila Wright, Miriam Sterling, Ellis Price and one other) drove from Cottonwood to Sedona and then turned left onto Jordan Road, about three-tenths of a mile past the junction of Routes 89A and 179. We followed Jordan Road into the Jordan Park subdivision, turned left onto Park Ridge Drive at the "T" and continued four-tenths of a mile before parking near a gate at the end of a short stretch of unpaved road.

We had originally planned to camp out overnight at General Springs on the Mogollon Rim this weekend. However, the rim road is still closed to the area because of bad weather and it was too cold anyway. Jim Thompson Trail was the alternative.

As the trail leads out of Mormon Canyon from the Jordan Road trailhead, it passes through a forest of Arizona cypress, Manzanita and the ever-present juniper. It continues along the side of the mountain above Sedona, passing Steamboat Rock and Steamboat Tank along the way, to connect with a trail leading into Wilson Canyon about 2.5 miles ahead and approximately one-half mile from Midgley Bridge.

Plants and flowers were abundant along the trail and I spent a lot of time photographing flowers. Although I didn't know what very many of them were, George Everman identified most of them later. I also sent a lichen picture to Bob Wakefield for identification. Specifically we found Blackfoot daisies, ragwort, banana yucca, sego lilies, Indian paintbrush, cliffrose, Nevada dalea, irises, western wallflower, cliff Fendlerbush, Nevada goldeneye, pincushion cactus, narrowleaf yucca, Torrey’s milkvetch and the earth scale soil lichen identified by Bob Wakefield.

Plains blackfoot daisy  

Smooth threadleaf ragwort

Sego lily

Indian paintbrush

Mexican cliffrose

Nevada dalea 

      

Iris

wallflower

Cliff fendlerbush 

Nevada goldeneye

Pincushion Cactus/Whipple's fishhook

 Narrowleaf yucca 

Bladderpod spiderflower

Torrey's milkvetch

Earth scale soil lichen (genus Psora) -- Identified by Bob Wakefield

On reaching the junction with the trail leading into Wilson Canyon, we turned up the canyon and traveled for about three-quarters of a mile until the trail became very indistinct. We then stopped in a nice sunny spot for lunch before heading back.

A few of the scenes that struck my fancy along the way are shown in the following photographs.

Looking down on Midgley Bridge from Jim Thompson Trail.

From Jim Thompson Trail. Looking across Oak Creek to red rocks backed by

white rocks

Sun playing in the branches of an ancient Arizona Cypress tree along Jim

Thompson Trail

This was an easy hike. The round trip distance was just about 7 miles and the total elevation change was a bit over 400 feet.

The GPS track of the path we took is shown on the included map (below).