Mescal Mountain Trail

Seventeen Skyliner hikers from Cottonwood and Sedona hiked Mescal Mountain Trail on 30 March 2013. We drove to the upper parking area for Long Canyon Trail on Long Canyon Road. From there we took the undesignated but well-worn connector trail across a dry wash and connected with Long Canyon Trail about 0.3 miles above the trailhead. We then followed Long Canyon for about 0.3 miles before turning west onto Mescal Mountain Trail (unsigned) at an old fence.

A short distance up this trail we came to what some call the “Birthing Cave,” supposedly used by Indian women for giving birth.

Hikers standing in front of the “Birthing Cave” alongside Mescal Mountain 

Trail

Having already seen the cave, I stayed on the trail below. I wonder whether Indian women went out of their way to give birth in such a place. It may well be just another story provided for tourist consumption.

As it headed up to a saddle in the mountain ahead, the trail became ever steeper and we found a couple of rock ledges that we had to literally crawl over.

On arriving at the first saddle we had a view across the Seven Canyons Resort to Wilson Mountain looming in the background. Note the distinctive red-rock sandstone base overlaid with cream-colored Coconino sandstone. The protruding cliff (left) of Mescal Mountain provides a closer view of the red sandstone.

Seven Canyons Resort and Wilson Mountain beyond

Looking to the northwest we could see bikers traveling along Deadman's Pass Trail which links Boynton Canyon Trail to Long Canyon Trail.

Mescal Mountain forms a ridge running generally northeast to southwest and has an adjoining ridge protruding to the southeast. As shown in the below photographs, our trail climbed from the first saddle, part way up the face of the southwest running ridge and then passed close alongside a sheer cliff wall leading to another saddle separating the mountain proper from the ridge running to the southeast.

Trail up the ridge from first saddle

Passing close alongside the cliff

From this saddle we could see Mescal Bike Trail running close along the side of the mountain to connect with Deadman's Pass Trail on the west side of the mountain.

We continued on across the saddle and climbed to the top of the southeast protruding ridge. From here we were able to see another section of the Mescal Bike Trail as it wound its way toward us from its trailhead at Long Canyon Road near the intersection with Dry Creek Road before veering to the west to join Deadman's Pass Trail.

We stopped for lunch at the top of the ridge. A gentle breeze was blowing and the sky, as it had been all day, was thinly overcast. It was not unpleasant but some of us did don our jackets.

Looking straight ahead from the ridge, we could see Dry Creek Road as it made its way back past Lizard Rock toward Sedona. In the below photograph, Lizard Rock is barely discernible at the top of the outcropping just to the left of the road. Thunder Mountain (the highest formation) looms starkly against the sky farther left. Two hikers are shown in the foreground carefully picking their way across the rocks.

Dry Creek Road, Lizard Rock and Thunder Mountain and two hikers

We paused for a group photograph before heading back.

Left to right (standing): David Beach, Jim Manning, Mark Purcell, Lila 

Wright, Beverly Sass, Becky Fowsky, Chris Adler, Marywave Van Deren, 

Miriam Sterling, Greg Mortimer, Gary Jacobson; (kneeling): the author, 

Dolly Yapp, Daisy Williams, Donna Goodman, Betty Wolters 

– photograph by unnamed using authors camera

The trip up had been considerably more difficult than I had anticipated and the trip back down, although faster, was also difficult. Not having hiked this trail before, I had relied on reports by others and I think they must have been much better hikers. Nevertheless, we did all make it back in good shape.

This hike was only 1.3 miles one way from where we parked. The highest elevation was 5026 feet and the total ascent was 528 feet.

Our GPS track is shown in red on the included map (below). The short blue section of track shows the section of Long Canyon Trail from the trailhead to where we entered the trail (Trl Jct) from the upper parking lot. From there to the spot marked “Trl Jct2,” our path is contiguous with Long Canyon Trail. The red flag shown midway along the blue track marks the spot where (according to the topographic map I am using) a branch of the Mescal Bike Trail intersects with Long Canyon Trail.