Journeys›Photograph

Cloudy New Year's Eve Hike in Sedona

·Sedona, Arizona, United States·#winter#hiking#landscape-photography#arizona#sedona
Three hot air balloons float in a cloudy sky above dark trees and reddish-brown mountains.

Last day of the year in Sedona, and it opened with three hot air balloons drifting over the ridge while the sky was still mostly cloud — pale yellow envelopes, far enough apart that they looked unrelated.

The hike itself never got sun. Clouds sat over everything all day, which turned the red rock a duller rust than the postcards but meant nobody was sweating in December. The trail worked up through juniper and prickly pear to a rise with Cathedral Rock straight ahead and Courthouse Butte off to the left across a bowl of green. Houses tucked into the trees down in the valley between us and the formations, small enough to miss until you looked for them.

We stopped for a photo together at the top of the rise, jackets on, the whole spread behind us. On the far side the view opened toward town — Sedona flat below the long wall of the mesa, haze hanging in the canyon beyond it.

Not a bad way to close out the year: red dirt on the boots, clouds refusing to break, and Cathedral Rock holding its ground the whole way back down.

Vast desert landscape with prominent red rock mountains, green trees in the foreground, and a valley with houses.Layered red-brown mountains rise under a cloudy sky, with a foreground of green trees and shrubs on a red hill.Two smiling people take a selfie with red rock mountains and desert foliage in the background under a cloudy sky.Red rock formations and green desert vegetation dominate a landscape under a cloudy sky.Layered red rock mountains with dark grey upper sections, scattered trees, and a distant town under a pale sky.Panoramic view of a town nestled among red rock mountains under a cloudy sky, with evergreen trees in the foreground.Vast desert landscape with prominent red rock formations, foreground vegetation, and an overcast sky.Red rock mountains dominate the landscape, with a dense green forest in the foreground under a cloudy sky.

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