Robber's Roost

Can you believe it’s already December? I can’t! I’m literally so excited for Christmas. I feel like a little kid saying this but I still wake up at 6am on Xmas morning just to see what “Santa” brought me and the fam bam. I guess that’s a story for later, BUT ANYWAYS, last week I was in the Midwest for work trips. I had the chance to visit good ol’ Indiana and Michigan, which was a lot more fun than I expected it to be, so this weekend I was dying for 2 things: 1) a home cooked meal, 2) adventure.

I was looking for a trail that would offer a good view without the strenuous distance most trails in Arizona have attached to them. I also knew I didn’t want to spend a whole ton of time in the cold seeing as I just came back from up north, so Sedona sounded perfect! After doing some research, I came across Robber’s Roost. It’s a little bit west of “Sedona Sedona”, but the viewpoint sounded worth the trip!

​Sunday came and I was ready to go by 8am. My BF and I took exit 260 which brought us to a little quant town in the middle of nowhere. We ended up taking a left into a church parking lot, which seemed like a mistake on Google Maps’ part but sure enough the parking lot led us to a random dirt road. After driving for what seemed like 5ever (really 40min) we finally got to an area that looked like a parking lot. Well it wasn’t lol. We saw another hiker parked there so it seemed right, but little did we know we were in for an extra .5mi walk we hadn’t planned on. It wasn’t a bad thing though. The road at this point looked pretty rough and probably would’ve been an uncomfortable drive. There were also lots of cows all over the place that looked at us as if they’d never seen something walk on 2 legs before (LOL).

Some cows, rocks, and road later we came to the trailhead which is marked by a “Wilderness” sign off to the right. The trail descended fairly quickly to the base of a small mountain/ overly big boulder (if you ask me), then began to ascend steadily to the top of said rock. The trails eventually curved left and we found ourselves pulling a Spiderman on the edge of the rock. Like we were literally walking sideways on the skinny edge of a cliff. Kinda scary. At this point though, we could see Robber’s Roost, and when we finally got there we had the whole place to ourselves for a good 20min! You could see Sedona off in the distance and a beautiful horizon lined by red rocks.

A couple came to the Roost right as we were leaving and apparently got lost, causing them to hike 3 extra miles. Please don’t be those people…

​I gave them both Mountain Chick stickers to make up for it (LOL). Here’s the fast facts:

• Distance- 1.5mi RT (from official trailhead)
• Duration- 30min
• Difficulty- EASYYYY
• Seclusion- Moderate
• Scenery- Red rocks and a giant hole! LOL.

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​-Dani

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