On a clear and sunny Saturday morning four Motorola Hiking Club members – Beth Baumert, Dave Langford, Yu-Ling Langford, and hike leader Chuck Parsons – met at the North Wilson Mountain trailhead located just north of the Encinoso Picnic Area, five miles north of the Sedona junction of highways 179 and 89A. We hit the 4,700-foot trailhead promptly at 10:00 AM and start hiking uphill in the crisp, cool 50°F temperature of lower Wilson Mountain in the Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness just north of Sedona. Wilson Mountain was named after prospector Richard Wilson, who was killed by a grizzly bear in this area in 1885. By the early 1900s grizzlies were gone forever from these mountains, as they were from most wild places in Arizona – victims of increasing population pressures and competition for space from the growing cattle industry. The last grizzly bear to be seen in Arizona was killed on Mt. Graham in 1935.

Our trail starts ascending right from the start, as it climbs through an open area of mixed chaparral and oak, before reaching a ridgeline above the picnic area and leaving the muffled traffic noises of 89A behind us. As we begin to move in a southward direction along the ridge, we get some good views of Oak Creek Canyon below us, as Dave informs us of the rainbow trout that he and Yu- Ling caught in Oak Creek the day before.

The two had driven up the night before to spend the weekend in Sedona, trout fishing and hiking. We soon leave the ridgeline behind us, as the trail continues to climb southwest up a heavily wooded drainage area. It feels like the temperature has suddenly dropped about 15 degrees in this drainage, a now dry feeder stream for Oak Creek, as the chill of the previous night’s cold settled air envelopes us.

As we quickly move through this pocket of cold air, we are rewarded with the sight of a thicket of small ash trees, awash in a sea of brilliant yellow fall leaves, which were just starting to carpet the trail in yellow. We finally make our way through the drainage basin near the base of soaring Coconino sandstone cliffs and leave the cold air behind us, as begin to switchback up the forested slopes of Wilson Mountain. Well along in the ascending switchbacks, we hear a faint “hello?” from some unseen hiker on the trail far below us. As we began to communicate with him, it soon becomes apparent that we are talking to a lost hiker who has somehow wondered off the trail.

Dave, being the Good Samaritan that he is, walks back down the trail a bit and eventually manages to guide the lost hiker back onto the trail once again – safe for the time being.

In Dave’s absence we discover a small pocket of strange cylindrical ice crystals in a shady spot on the trail, stark evidence of just how cold this mountain is at night in these late fall days of mid-November.

Crimson Indian paintbrush provides a splash of trailside color, as we continue up the switchbacks to the top of the slope and connect with another ridgeline that eventually carries us onto the First Bench of Wilson Mountain, a large and broad open plateau dotted with huge, spreading alligator juniper up to five feet in diameter. We have not seen alligator juniper this size since hiking Granite Mountain near Prescott last year. The towering, dried out stalks of large century plants also populate the mixed vegetation of First Bench, as they thrust their large seed pods skyward to catch the attention of pollinating bats and moths. First Bench also provides a spectacular view of Mingus Canyon to the east, as it opens up its vast and colorful interior to us from our vantage point high up on this plateau overlooking red rock country.

As we steadily make our way to the south end of the plateau, the North Wilson Trail links up with the Wilson Trail, and we make a right turn at the junction to follow the Wilson Trail in a northwesterly direction to the summit of Wilson Mountain. The Wilson Trail now begins to ascend through yet another series of switchbacks, along soaring basalt cliffs close to the rim, before emerging onto a shallow drainage area that shows evidence of recent rains in the form of a now soft and muddy trail carrying the deep foot and paw prints of previous two and four-legged hikers. We carefully traverse this muddy portion of the trail for another quarter mile or so, before eventually reaching a saddle on the Wilson Mountain summit.

The summit of Wilson Mountain is actually another large forested plateau with several small knobs rising 50-100 feet in elevation, with the true summit to the north of the saddle.

It is now almost 1:30 in the afternoon, as we follow Dave’s suggestion and make our way to a scenic overlook, where we will stop to have lunch, while enjoying the scenery. The views from this 6,900-foot overlook make the entire trip worthwhile, as we take in the spectacular red rock mesas, high buttes, knife-edged spires, and massive towering cliffs of the Sedona area far below us.

In the distance we can see Oak Creek Canyon, as hundreds of soaring cottonwoods – wearing fall crowns of golden yellow – outline its winding course through Sedona and the surrounding area. There are not too many places in all of Arizona that offer this kind of view. We soak it all in, as we take a well-deserved lunch break, while trying to capture the unique beauty of this special place on film – a challenging task for any photographer.

It is really tempting to stay until sunset and watch the setting sun deepen the already spectacular colors in the scene below us, but the day is now growing short and we need to quicken our pace if we are going to get off this mountain before the long, dark shadows of the setting sun overtake us.

Once again following Dave’s suggestion, we decide to take a 1.4-mile spur trail over to the north side of the summit to check out the views of Mt. Humphreys. Beth decides to turn back and start back down the mountain at this point, saying that she is a bit slow going down hill. We keep in touch with her on the Motorola TalkAbouts, as Dave, Yu-Ling, and I kick it into high gear to reach the north side.

The trail carries us through open forests of oak, pine, and juniper, as it transforms into a soft mud bog in places.

We step around or over several large fallen ponderosa pines, forest giants at the end of their life cycle, as they decay back into the forest floor to provide nutrients for a new generation of trees to populate the summit of Wilson Mountain.

We reach the north side a little sooner than expected, and the views from here are once again worth the extra effort. The most dominant landmark is Mt. Humphreys, thrusting its snow-capped peak high into the deep blue Arizona sky, its slopes blazing with the fall colors of yellow aspen groves. Slide Rock State Park and Vultee Arch lie somewhere below us in the distance.

The snow-capped San Francisco Peaks dominate this skyline.

Beth had radioed us earlier about taking a right turn at the First Bench junction for a last look at the red rock scene we had enjoyed at lunch, and we take her advice as we arrive just in time to catch the late afternoon colors and the deepening shadows spreading across the rock faces.

The Red Rocks of Oak Creek Canyon.

Luckily, I have a flashlight and extra batteries with me just in case, although we are also going to have a nearly full moon rising in the next couple of hours to help light our path as well, if needed.

For some reason parts of this trail seem even rougher and rockier on the way back down, and we all lose our footing a time or two in the loose rocks of the steeper slopes. At one point I went down hard and threw my left leg up so high on the way down, I thought I might have pulled a tendon, but after a few minutes rest was able to continue on. Brief visions of a Kachina Trail hike a couple of years ago flashed before me, when one of our hikers broke an ankle and had to be air-lifted off the mountain.

Hopefully, no choppers would be circling overhead this afternoon. As the setting sun drops lower to the horizon, the temperature is starting to drop fast as well. A quick look at my thermometer verifies that with a reading of 40 degrees. Brrr! Time to break out another layer or two. We stop close to the trailhead to admire the rising moon, encircled by a beautiful soft halo of ice crystals – one last photo op for the day.

In the deepening dusk of the evening, as the moon slowly rises higher into the night sky, we arrive at long last back at the parking lot to find Beth rapidly circling the perimeter in an attempt to stay warm. It was almost time now to break out that flashlight. We stow our gear away and say our good-byes to Dave and Yu-Ling, who are staying another night in Sedona so they can try their luck again tomorrow, stalking those lunker rainbow trout lurking in the shadows of the large boulders and overhanging cottonwood branches of Oak Creek. We part company, as Beth and I head into Sedona and back to Phoenix, taking with us memories of yet another beautiful and inspiring place along the amazing trails of Arizona.