2015-02-27 Sedona Arizona Area

Seeing we are staying in Black Canyon City, and Sedona is only a hour away, we decided to head up for lunch. On the way we hiked Bell Rock in Oak Creek.

 Named for its shape - we only hiked the base of this seeing our legs were still crying from earlier hikes.

 Another beautiful formation in Oak Creek.

 This amazing church (Church of the Holy Cross) is in Sedona built into the side of a red rock cliff.


 This is a cliff dwelling at Montezuma Well - see top left corner of the panoramic below.  The pool is fed from underground springs and contains forms of life never seen anywhere else in the world.

 The picture below is from the bottom of the pool area - there was a staircase built to allow you to hike down into the big hole to see the dwellings at the base.

From here there was an underground outlet for the water to flow down along the creek in lime-coated irrigation ditches for the Sinagua Indian corn fields below.

This is where the water comes out the other side of the hill from the base of the pool.  The extremely large tree on the left of this picture is an Arizona Sycamore.

Our next stop was to see Montezuma Castle.  The Southern Sinagua's built this 5 story, 20 room swelling into the side of a cliff sometime between 1100 and 1300. It is over 100 feet above the valley.