Munds Wagon Trail to Cow Pies

Author's Comments

The name is unfortunate. The place is not. I almost did not walk this trail because of what it is called, and I would have been the poorer for it. The Cow Pies are a series of stacked sandstone terraces about a mile and a half up the Munds Wagon Trail, and they do something that very few places in Sedona manage anymore: they let you stand alone with the view. Courthouse Butte to one direction. Bell Rock to another. Cathedral Rock catching last light to the west, and the Mogollon Rim holding the far horizon like a blue wall. From the upper terraces you can turn slowly and see all of it, and there will likely be no one within shouting distance. I came in late November, an hour before sunset. The sandstone went from pale orange to something closer to ember, and the rounded shapes of the terraces themselves became foreground - smooth curves leading the eye toward the buttes beyond. This is a place where a wide lens works because the rock at your feet is already a composition. You do not have to invent depth. It is given. Bring water. There is no shade and the rock holds heat well past sunset in any season warmer than winter. And do not rush the walk back. The light that comes after the sun drops, when the buttes go violet and the sandstone keeps glowing for another twenty minutes, is the part most people miss because they have already started down.

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