Cinematic Sedona

Cathedral Rock appeared in Broken Arrow

This week, Sedona hosts its eighteenth annual International Film Festival, when more than a hundred movies unreel around town. It’s a fabulous event, and a wonderful time to be here, when bleary-eyed movie-goers can step from the theater into bright sunshine and the promise of spring, with fruit trees and daffodils blossoming around West Sedona, and wildflowers beginning to show up along forest trails.

Film buffs who are new to Sedona might feel a sense of déjà vu when they take in the local red rock landscape. No wonder, since more than eighty movies have been made in the Sedona area, many of them during the golden age of Westerns. For years, a Western town set stood in West Sedona (where a housing development is today), appearing in several films, including John Wayne’s Angel and the Badman (1946). A local hotel (now home to the wonderful Elote Café) was once the site of a soundstage. The area around Bell Rock (now the Village of Oak Creek) made a dramatic backdrop for The Rounders (1964) and other films, and the area of the Broken Arrow Trail was a key location in—you guessed it-- Broken Arrow (1950), starring Jimmy Stewart. 

Even today, traffic occasionally comes to a standstill while cameras roll for a commercial, television episode, or feature film. Every couple years, rumors surface about building a movie museum here, but for now, the best place to learn about the area’s Hollywood past is at the Sedona Heritage Museum, where an entire room is dedicated to Sedona’s cinematic history. 

The film festival usually includes a few local filmmakers, some of them students at Sedona's Zaki Gordon Institute. A few years back, I worked on a film script for producer/director RJ Joseph. It was quite a thrill to sit in a dark theater and hear my words during Che Ah Chi, a visually stunning documentary about the Native American history of Boynton Canyon, today home to Enchantment Resort. 


Sedona's film festival continues through Sunday, February 26. See you at the movies!

10 Reasons Why I Love Grand Canyon in Winter

Mather Point, Grand Canyon

One of my favorite winter destinations is Grand Canyon. Though the North Rim is closed, and commercial river trips are on hiatus till warmer months, the South Rim is open year-round. Historic Grand Canyon Village and its surrounding woodlands are magical in winter, and here’s why:

1. Fewer crowds. And best of all, fewer bus tours, which can make a summer day seem like a visit to a theme park. In winter, Grand Canyon Village feels like a village, bringing an air of intimacy to this vast natural wonder.

2. Hermit Road is shuttle-free. Don’t get me wrong: I love the South Rim’s free shuttle system, really, I do. But at the risk of sounding environmentally unfriendly, it’s liberating and peaceful to be able to explore Hermit Road overlooks without the noisy beasts. (Maybe I’m still a bit steamed that Congress killed the light rail system that was once slated for the South Rim.)

3. Relaxed dining. During winter months, it’s easy to get a dinner reservation at El Tovar. No lines or pagers. No having to eat at 4 p.m. or 9:45 p.m. The ambiance is romantic, the menu elegant.

4. Brilliant sunsets. With the sun at its lowest angle, the light is especially juicy on winter afternoons, and every sunset is a performance. Canyon walls change from gold to orange to pink to purple before the curtain falls.

5. Late sunrises. This means even a sleepy bear like me can roll out and watch golden light spread like honey over the canyon.

Near Hermits Rest

6. Snowplay. The winter of 2011-12 has been dry, but most winters, storms deliver snow that lingers at higher spots like Grandview or near the Arizona Trail, great for snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, or snowball fights.

7. Wildlife. Winter is an especially good time for watching the local fauna. Deer and elk wander close to the village, and ponderosa pines shelter juncos, nuthatches, and chickadees.

8. Fireplaces. Another environmentally incorrect sentiment, but I love sitting by a warm fire after a snowy walk along the Rim Trail. You can toast your tootsies in El Tovar’s Rendezvous Room, by the huge stone hearth at Hermit’s Rest, or in Bright Angel Lodge’s inglenook or history room, where Mary Colter’s geological fireplace can be found.

9. Great hiking. Though the upper sections of trails might be icy, requiring crampons, the inner canyon is temperate and blissfully quiet. Hiking down Hermit Trail in January, I encountered only six other people. (Always check trail conditions before setting out.)

10. Bargains. During winter months, canyon lodges often discount room rates or offer special promotions.

Of course, at the rim’s 7,000-foot elevation, winter weather can be unpredictable. Fortunately, the National Park Service’s website—a treasure trove of information—includes current weather conditions. And the unexpected can be the best part of any trip. One winter visit, I was treated to a rare inversion, when the canyon fills with clouds and only the highest peaks are visible—an awesome sight.

Sweet Home Sedona

Sedona, Arizona

On most any given day in Sedona, Arizona, visitors outnumber residents. Each afternoon, scores answer the seductive call of red sandstone to scramble up slickrock slopes in search of a vortex or view. Hundreds more drive up Airport Mesa or down Red Rock Loop Road to snap photos of rocks shaped like castles, critters, and kitchen implements. Shoppers jaywalk through Uptown, mountain bikers bomb down forest trails, and drivers—visitors and locals alike—hit the brakes when something unexpected crosses the road, be it a family of Gambel quail or a hot-air balloon gone astray.

            Life here can get pretty wacky at times. Maybe it’s because Sedona’s red rocks are riddled with vortexes (vortices, if you prefer). Whether they are whorls of energy or inventions to attract tourists, their draw is second only to the landscape itself. But more about the vortex scene another time. First, let’s consider Sedona’s other-worldly landscape, the reason why so many people (1) visit here, (2) move here, or (3) fantasize about moving here.

           The greater Sedona area, home to about 15,000 people, encompasses Uptown, West Sedona, and the Village of Oak Creek. It’s a bit like a suburb without an urb, a commercial/residential island surrounded by a sea of public land, most of it Coconino National Forest. Neither desert nor mountain but somewhere in between, the Sedona area is situated a couple thousand feet below the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. Rugged canyons—splendid for hiking—are carved from the plateau’s Permian rocks. One, the canyon of Oak Creek, cuts through a 2,500-foot geological layer cake on its 12-mile length, revealing an earth shaped by oceans, deserts, swamps and volcanic flows.

           Sedona’s famed buttes and spires are sculpted from a 700-foot thick stack of mudstone, sandstone, and limestone colored dark red, orange, and gray. In some places, limestone forms a hard cap that protects lower, softer layers of rock, leaving water and wind to create shapes that tease the imagination. Taller peaks, like Bear Mountain and Capitol Butte, are topped with a gorgeous golden cross-bedded sandstone formed from ancient dunes. Counterpoint to the red and gold rocks is a patchwork of green (mostly piñon and juniper) and intensely blue skies.

           Living in such a beautiful place can be both blessing and curse. On days when deadlines keep me at my desk and a quick dash to New Frontiers for groceries becomes a protracted battle to find a parking space among hordes of rental cars, I grit my teeth to see the drivers lounging at the tables outside the deli, sipping wheatgrass shakes or lattes. Mildly sunburned and smiling, wearing Tevas and shorts, they consult topos or phone apps to plan their next adventures. As for me, well, I am as jealous as a jilted lover.

           My green-eyed monster may violate Sedona’s New Age vibe, but the sin of envy makes sense if you agree with one of my favorite writers, Pico Iyer, who compares travel to a love affair. He points out that travel is “a heightened state of awareness in which we are mindful, receptive and ready to be transformed.” 

           Travelers--and lovers--fare best when they are open to the unexpected and willing to become lost. This state is familiar to Buddhists and yogis as beginner’s mind. Lovers know it as the discovery stage, when all seems magical and possible. Psychologists might call it infatuation or limerance. Here in Sedona, we've dubbed it Red Rock Fever, and it can make people do foolish things, like trying to hike up Bell Rock in flip-flops or abandoning a steady career to become a yoga teacher or tour guide. (Or travel writer.)

           Being a travel writer, I get to fall in love a lot. And though it may be a bit harder to drum up passion for the familiar, state of mind is quite portable, as easy to pack as a clean pair of socks and ready to go anywhere … even the grocery store.