Robber's Roost

I went hiking with a couple friends on Saturday- so exciting! We drove north of Sedona up a dirt road for several miles, then followed a dirt track another couple miles to the head of the trail- high in the foothills there is a hill that is mostly red rock and shale. It has caves all around it, and we hiked to the east cave first. It's an easy hike, luckily, since we are three out of shape "mature" women. There is a bit of climbing/clambering involved, walking on the bell-shaped part of the red rocks to reach the cave. It's worth it though, that cave has a 'window' hollowed out of the rock to the south. It's red rock arch in the making, but for now it still has a foundation of stone at the bottom. I climbed through it to walk around the ledge for a little ways, but it's a pretty sharp drop off, with sheer cliff face straight up. It's a manageable climb around it to explore further, but I thought I'd save that for another day. We only met 2 other hikers up there, and they were leaving as we were arriving, so it a nice quiet place... Although we did get buzzed from a military plane. The guys came right up to the cave, banked south, so I waved at them, I'm sure they could see us, I could throw a rock and touch them. Course, I wouldn't throw a rock at a military plane! Janet told us a friend of hers was in the cave fasting, heard this horrible rumbling noise, felt like an earthquake. The next thing she knows, she was face to face with a helicopter! It dropped right down to the mouth of the cave for the tourists to get a view- they were all surprised to see each other!

The cave is big enough for a good size group, it has a fire pit in the sand and room to sleep if you wanted to spend the night. Janet tells me there is a water pond at the top of the hill, but we didn't climb up there. She has spent many days there, fasting and singing with her group. She's part of a Native American church, and she sang some beautiful songs while we were visiting. She also cleaned off some of the graffiti left by others. there aren't many petroglyphs in there, but what is there gets obscured by newbies. The cave has several corn grinding metates worked into the cave rock. There is a small round hole ground over the centuries, but it's too small for grinding meal, and I'm not archeologist enough to recognize what it was used for. Janet says this was a 'woman's cave', which makes sense when you see the 4-5 grain-grinding indentations.

Before we left the hill we walked around to the west cave, which has a whole different feel to it. Janet has seen mountain lions over there, and believes there is a den at a cave lower on the hill. It's a brushier side of the hill, lots of oak and manzanita. The manzanita is blooming right now, it's beautiful and smells so good. I definitely had the feeling we were being watched, and the closer we got to the west cave the more the hairs on my neck stood up. We walked into the cave and quickly saw lion tracks all over the south end of the cave, not fresh but certainly recent... That was enough for me, Janet and I booked it out of there. She doesn't know it, but I was brandishing my walking stick back and forth behind me, just trying to be a bigger, more threatening target. That sucker was stalking us, or at least following us, and I have no intention of being dinner.

The weather was beautiful, in the high 60's, perfect for a little hiking. The caves are only 1/2 mile or so from the parking area, and the view is spectacular- red rock country all around. The road is rough, I'm glad we took the truck, but certainly passable with a high clearance vehicle. Good friends, great views, perfect day.