ALONG THE WAY

Arizona Highways Special Scenic Collection Book SECRET SEDONA Sacred Moments in the Landscape

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY LARRY LINDAHL FOREWORD BY WILLIAM EATON

Full-color photography. 80 pages. Softcover #ACRS4 Was $9.95 - NOW only $8.96*

SECRET SEDONA Sacred Moments in the Landscape

text and photographs by LARRY LINDAHL foreword by WILLIAM EATON Sedona is not just another pretty place and Secret Sedona: Sacred Moments in the Landscape offers more than pretty photographs and geologic facts. Your senses will transcend beauty and science to savor secret places filled with natural and ancient forces of life in the awesome Red Rock country. Photographs of the landscape and hidden cliff dwellings will stir your soul, and Larry Lindahl's vignettes will renew your connection to Nature. All this stems from the bounty collected during more than 12 years of exploring.

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A Hair-raising Old Wagon Route Earned Grief Hill Its Fitting Name

ALTHOUGH NOW OFTEN Overlooked by travelers rushing past it on State Route 260 between Camp Verde and Cottonwood, in the 1860s hair-raising Grief Hill earned its name in a series of Indian attacks on the supply wagons laboring from Fort Whipple to Camp Lincoln.

These days, the faint dirt road parallels Interstate 17 as it plunges down into the Verde Valley, offering travelers sweeping views and a scented whiff of the hardships that early settlers faced.

Rancher King Woolsey built the rough wagon road in 1864 and charged soldiers and civilians on horseback 2 cents per mile to use it. Without modern technology, road builders didn't realize they'd carved a path down one of the longest, steepest hills in the country. Wagons descending the treacherous hill dragged tree trunks chained behind to act as a drag to prevent them from careening out of control down the 1-mile incline. My husband, Lloyd, and I took on the nasty Grief Hill Road along the old wagon route. Leaving Dewey and the grasslands of Prescott Valley behind, we headed toward Cherry, a former stage stop. We turned off on Cherry Road, built in the 1870s to replace the treacherous Grief Hill Road. Trailing behind, billowing dust coated the trees and shrubs lining the roadway. Then for a short distance, the road turned to smooth asphalt-if only the soldiers had received such a break.

Scrub oak, bright in the October morning sun, covered the rolling hills in a blaze of red and gold. As we gradually gained altitude, the oak gave way to juniper, cedar, piñon, oak trees and eventually to ponderosa pines as we neared Cherry.

The tiny community has its own fire department and a bed and breakfast. We pulled off the road next to Cherry Creek, which sometimes flows across the road, and admired the mountain views and horses grazing in meadows alongside the Cherry Creek Bed and Breakfast. The area is sparsely populated with longtime ranchers and summer residents. Past Cherry, the road climbed to 5,400 feet. The San Francisco Peaks edged the horizon, so we stopped to revel in a panoramic view. Rain clouds shrouded Humphreys Peak, Arizona's tallest mountain, and we marveled at Sedona's red rock walls and the magnificent scenery of the Mogollon Rim to the east. The road, washboardy in places, narrowed in the final 4 miles as we descended into the valley. Hawks in flight guided us, soaring on the wind current as we cautiously wound around switchbacks and horseshoe curves without the security of guardrails, a white-knuckle ride requiring constant vigilance. At one point, cows with calves ambled down the road in front of us, unaffected by our idling behind them.

Less than a half-mile after negotiating a low-water crossing at Cherry Creek, we reached the Grief Hill trailhead. In 1992, the Verde