GENE PERRET'S WIT STOP

hikeof the month Sterling Pass Trail in OAK CREEK CANYON Echoes Footsteps of a Notorious RUSTLER AND COUNTERFEITER

STEEP AND DEMANDING, THE 2.4-mile-long Sterling Pass Trail marks a historic route up a beautiful side canyon of Oak Creek Canyon. The path's background relates a shadowy side of Sedona's past and takes its name from the crook who lived and made mischief at the bottom of it. The original Indian route probably was a pleasant place until a man named Sterling moved into the area. History doesn't reveal his first name, but his last name appears all over Oak Creek Canyon landmarks.

Sterling had a home in Sterling Canyon (near the fish hatchery in northern Oak Creek Canyon) where he counterfeited money. Just a little farther south, he had a second home in another lovely spot, also named Sterling Canyon, on the north side of Sterling Pass near Vultee Arch (formerly called Sterling Arch until Gerald Vultee's plane crashed on the canyon's north slope in 1938, killing him and his wife).

Sterling also stole cattle. After butchering a stolen cow in the northern Sterling Canyon, he would haul it to his other home. Local homesteaders, searching for their chattel, followed Sterling's tracks as he traveled from one canyon to the next. They caught him with his hands full of counterfeit money and rustled beef, tried him and threw him in the penitentiary.

The tawdry Sterling picked one of the nicest canyons in the Oak Creek drainage for his shenanigans. In the summer, a rich ponderosa pine forest shades much of the trail as it climbs between red rock walls. In the fall, the canyon fills with a passionate display of fiery colors from bigtooth maple trees.

shenanigans. In the summer, a rich ponderosa pine forest shades much of the trail as it climbs between red rock walls. In the fall, the canyon fills with a passionate display of fiery colors from bigtooth maple trees.

The trail begins as a mad dash up a short, but steep, forested wall of Oak Creek Canyon. The path settles down to a more sensible climb as it heads to a slick-rock pour-off, contours its edge, then enters a captivating forest.

The moist environment cradled between red rock walls, which rise several hundred feet, nurtures a timberland of hardwoods and giant ponderosa pines above a spread of bracken ferns. Though still on the uphill, the trail wends docilely through this pretty forest.

By mile one, the path turns austere as it starts a steep, rugged climb out of the drainage, rising above the pines into the sunshine. The trail becomes more demanding the higher it climbs, but the panoramic views become more exquisite. An overlook gives hikers a chance to catch their breath and study the Coconino sandstone formations jutting from the canyon walls.

At Sterling Pass, hikers will have climbed almost 1,200 feet elevation in 1.7 miles. They can catch their breath again when they follow a path on the right to another overlook, where the stunning views-Dry Creek canyon system on the west and Oak Creek Canyon to the east-might take their breath away again.

From Sterling Pass, hikers may return to the trailhead for a shorter day hike or continue on the trail. The path zigzags through the pines down the other side of the pass into Sterling Canyon, the rustler's southern homestead, dropping 800 feet in three-fourths of a mile to the Vultee Arch Trail.

Hikers can take the short spur trail to Vultee Arch and then return the way they came. But if they find any stray currency on the trail, they'd better make sure it's authentic before spending it. And