Boynton Canyon - Mushroom

On 26 March 2011, sixteen Skyliners hiked to the mushroom formation in Boynton Canyon. From Cottonwood we drove north on Hwy 89A to Sedona and turned left onto Dry Creek

Road. From there we followed the signs, turning left on Boynton Pass Road and then right on Boynton Canyon Road, to the trailhead parking lot located on the right just before the road ends at the entrance to Enchantment resort.

The trail crosses a wash and leads up the canyon skirting the resort. About 1.7 miles from the trailhead we took an unmarked but fairly well defined trail to the right. An alligator juniper with two main trunks marks the turnoff, which is located just a few yards short of the tree.

Alligator juniper with two main trunks

The trail crosses a wash and leads, at first gently, up the slope of the canyon wall. Shortly, however, it starts to climb rather steeply. Before we reached our goal we had climbed around 800 feet from the bottom of the wash. Along the way, we encountered some really steep climbs (requiring the use of both hands and feet, sometimes knees) as we navigated our way up over three major ledges. The trail ascends to a ledge and then follows along it to reach an access point to climb to the next ledge. There were two of these climbs to higher ledges, each reached by a really steep climb, before we made our last steep climb to reach the ledge at which Mushroom is located. The Mushroom actually is separated from a larger ledge by a narrow crack that one can easily step across to stand on top of the formation.

On the way up we noted a unique formation that looks like a bear eating from a honey tree. Shown in the following photographs are shots of this “bear eating honey” formation, hikers emerging on top of the first of the three ledges, hikers ascending the second ledge and a view across Boynton Canyon from the second ledge.

Bear eating honey

Hikers ascending first of three ledges

Hikers ascending the second ledge

When we reached the top of the second ledge, we paused for a few minutes to catch our breath and enjoy the grand view out across Boynton Canyon.

Looking back across Boynton Canyon

But our goal was the mushroom formation, so we shortly pushed on, traveling about two-tenths of a mile along the ledge to the northeast before reaching a point from which we could climb to the top of the third ledge and the Mushroom.

As we approached the beginning of this third (and final) steep climb, we caught our first sight of Mushroom (below), framed by sky, trees and the cliff face. Encouraged by the sight of our goal, we wasted little time in starting the final push to the top.

Our first glimpse of Mushroom from the second ledge

The final climb to Mushroom

David Beach doing the victory dance on top of Mushroom. Note the bush 

growing out of a crack in the foreground. That crack separates Mushroom 

from the ledge from which this picture was taken.

On the way back down we noted a strange leaning rock formation that we had missed coming up. It seems almost to defy gravity and I wouldn’t want to be below it during an earthquake.

The gravity defying leaning rock

Left to right (standing): Lila Wright, Jim Manning, Name Withheld, 

Collene Maktenieks, Donna Goodman, Connie Woolard, Kwi Johnson, 

David Beach, Anita Jackson, Linda Tovar and John McInerney; 

Crouching: Betty Wolters, Daisy Williams - Photograph by the author

The round trip hike was about 6.4 miles. The elevation change was around 960 feet, 800 of that in the 1.3 mile climb from the wash to the top of Mushroom. Note that the total hike distance given here includes about 0.4 miles that I hiked along the ledge from Mushroom.

The GPS track for this hike is shown on the included map (below).