West Clear Creek Hike, West Clear Creek Wilderness, Camp Verde, Arizona
West Clear Creek on a fall day
I have always wanted to check out West Clear Creek as it seems to be a popular hike for folks visiting Sedona. Mike and I found ourselves planning to camp in the area so we decided to finally check it out. The road to the trailhead was pretty rough - I would not recommend taking a sedan down that road - having some clearance was needed. Once we made it to the trailhead, we parked, packed up our bags, and set out on our way. The trail starts as a very wide path away from the water. We were the only car at the parking lot so we had the trail to ourselves that day.
About a mile in, we crossed the wilderness boundary and still had yet to have any real views of the creek. We didn’t have to wait much longer as the trail then started heading down to the creek. We had some quick views of it and then the path veered away from it again. As we would learn, this would be the theme of the day. The path then made it’s way back to the creek, and we had to make our first stream crossing. I was able to make it across the creek by hopping on rocks, but the distance between some of the rocks was at the limit of my height and comfort level. The creek was never really more than knee deep for any of the crossings so it wouldn’t be a big deal to cross barefoot, as I found myself doing on the third crossing.
Once we got to the other side, we didn’t stay there long and were almost immediately forced to cross back across the stream for a second time. After doing that, the trail meandered away from the creek for a little while until we came back down for the third stream crossing. Mike managed to make it across, but he’s 6 inches taller than me, and my legs would not comfortably reach between two rocks in one spot so I found myself taking my shoes off and rolling my pants up to cross. The cold water actually felt pretty nice.
Once we completed the third stream crossing, we came across a big pile of driftwood that had clearly been moved there by the creek at some point while flooded. It’s hard to imagine the creek being high enough to create the pile of wood that it did (picture of Mike next to it below). From here, the trail once again left the creek and started gaining a little elevation and moving away from the creek. From the third stream crossing, we walked about another quarter of a mile, to a pretty lookout point of the rest of the canyon. We decided this would be our turnaround point as it was clear the trail wouldn’t go back down to the creek again for a while. It was a nice spot to stop for a snack. Once we were refueled, we packed up and headed back the same way we came.
Overall, I was actually a little disappointed by this hike. I was expecting the trail to be closer to the creek more than it was. The hike only went down to the creek a handful of times in the first few miles. I had been hoping for more time by the creek than we got. That said, it was a beautiful hike to do in the fall with the leaves changing color. I can’t complain about the day because it was a day spent outside, but it’s probably not a hike I’ll do again.
Total Stats: 5.5 miles, 350 ft of elevation gain
