Share My World: Red Rock Scenic Byway

sjarvie5 (67)in #photofeed • 5 years ago (edited)

While my brother @jarvie was staying with me during his annual February trip to Arizona (Arizona in winter is beautiful with average temperatures in the 70s) one weekend he asked if I wanted to go to Sedona.

YES! They had recently gotten a lot of snow and really wanted to get pictures of Sedona in the snow.

Something to know about me. I grew up in the beautiful beach town of San Diego and in my heart I love the mountains and snow. I am so happy when I am in the snow so to see the beautiful red rocks of Sedona covered in a beautiful white blanket of snow. I was so happy!

We woke up around 4am so we could get on the road and to Sedona by 7am for sunrise.

Cathedral Rock

For sunrise we started a Cathedral Rock. Where @jarvie did some drone flying and I even got to do a little. It is a natural sandstone butte on the Sedona skyline 1.

Yavapai Point

As we headed to the scenic byway we pulled over and took pictures at Yavapai Point in the super deep snow. Scotty has a great off road truck and so we were able to pull into the parking area.

Bell Rock

This is what I think of when I think of Sedona Red Rock. It is the first landmark on the Red Rock Scenic Byway when you come from the south (Phoenix). It is 4,919 feet tall 2.

Courthouse Vista

We then headed north on I79 and pulled out in a little place called Courthouse Vista.

Chapel of the Holy Cross

@jarvie is a wonderful photographer of churches and did a project called Faith in America in which he photographed religious buildings in all 50 states in America. It was no surprise to me that he wanted to photograph this church too.

Cool sun in a bed of snow.

A gorgeous morning.

Second breakfast

For late breakfast we went to a cute Mexican Restaurant. The food was good and the owner very friendly.

Cathedral Rock

We wanted to see Cathedral Rock from a different view point and see if it was a good spot for sunrise shots the next morning.

I really did like it with the water flowing through the picture.

Unnamed location

Yay for off road vehicles! We got to go out further and see some gorgeous views.

When we started the trip Scotty said he wanted to get a cactus covered in snow!

Schnebly Hill

What a gorgeous place. Lots of people were hiking around here, which I would like to go back and do in the future.

Slide Rock

Slide Rock State Park is a 43 acre apple farm located in Oak Creek Canyon. There is a park entrance fee per vehicle and it has places to hike and camp 3. In the summer is is a popular place to cool off in the water. We parked outside of the park and I took pictures and @jarvie flew his drone.

The drive on 89A

Scotty and I had a GREAT time singing to 80s pop music driving through this gorgeous winter wonderland. The road was closed to Flagstaff so we had to turn around and go to the I17 to go to Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon. We didn't mind. It was so beautiful.

Here is a sampling of the fun.
We also made a great 80s pop play list for our Sibling Trip in May to Europe.

Snowpeople!

One of my favorite things was all the snowpeople all over the city. While most people picture Arizona as hot desert with lots of cactus, which is true in parts of the state. Northern Arizona does get snow and this past weekend it got more than it usually does

According to Bestplaces.net Sedona averages 1 inches of snow per year and in February 2019 Sedona got 11 inches of snow!