Sedona's BEST Family Friendly Hike

Rockhopper here looking for a family-friendly, fun, easy hike just outside of Sedona. I've got one for you. This is the beginning of the Fay Canyon Trail, about eight miles outside of Sedona, Arizona. The hike starts out fairly flat and for the most part it's going to stay that way. I'm not only going to show you the Fay Canyon Trail, but there's a little surprise coming up that some locals know about and most tourists don't. And I'm going to show you that too. Thank you to the guys at Hoka for the new hat. They make a line of running shoes and hiking boots. And hey, maybe you guys at Hoka will throw me a couple pairs of hiking boots to try out sometime. So it's not long until we start getting into the more woodsy looking stuff here. We've got some kind of scrubby oak type stuff, junipers, pinyon pine, and other assorted plants. This is the alligator juniper and you can see why it's named that because it does kind of look like the back of an alligator. The trail's staying pretty flat and you can see the red rocks out in the distance there. We've got a little bit of spring color popping out here. The farther we go in, the closer the glimpses of the red rocks become. Little manzanita flowers here. Sometimes you get a little hit of nectar off of them when you eat them. Okay you guys, I'm going to show you a little secret. Don't tell anybody. So as you're walking up the Fay Canyon Trail, to the right there's another little path, but it's not marked. And it goes to kind of a sweet little place. It's just a slender little path, but you can see where people have been here before. The views get pretty good. Up and up we go through the cactus along the path. We're getting closer. Starting to get a glimpse. There's what we're looking for. Can you see it? Now we're heading up the steep and bouldery stuff. Now that we've seen the Hidden Arch, let's continue up the main Fay Canyon Trail. So we're about halfway in and the trail is fairly flat. Now we are getting into a little bit of rocks here, but not too much of a problem for most people. We continue through the oak, juniper, manzanita, and other assorted plants in this area. We're getting closer to the canyon walls. Along the way we cross a few little washes, but nothing to worry about. Nothing major. So is this hike family-friendly? Well, let's ask a family. What do you guys think? I think it's very family-friendly. It's kind of hard, but it's easy. It's just you gotta do a bit of like sliding and climbing. Not that like intense climbing, just like it's kind of steep, but not that steep. Okay, what do you guys think? Well, I think like it's like, uh, so I'm like, it's like a rock tilted, so you have to always lean to the side, that side, um, because like, um, if you slip, so I think it's sort of intense, but, um, you should, um, like, it's not that intense though. Okay, but overall you think it's pretty fun, you guys? Yeah. How many thumbs up? Two. All right, well, this family gives it two thumbs up, everybody. Awesome. All right, awesome. Well, thank you guys. And the dog gives it two paws up. All right, so we are at the official end of the trail. Now, how much would you expect to pay for all this? But wait, there's more. We're gonna keep going. I'm going to show you some good stuff if you go past the end of the trail. Okay, now here's where it starts to get a little bit steep. Yeah, it's definitely getting much more rocky and much steeper, and you keep going up, there is a bit of a path, and we're going up below that really big rock right there. Those who are willing to hike up here will be rewarded with magnificent views. We're following along this ridge here, heading up canyon. All right, so we're going and squeezing through the trees and the rocks right through here, and it looks like just, uh, almost like a little bit of bushwhacking, but not really. Yeah, there's enough space in here you don't have to bushwhack. Enough of a path, and it starts to open up to this. The trail is narrowing down now, and we're getting pretty close to the end. Here's a look behind us, almost to the end of the canyon, and here's the view looking up to the top. We've reached the unofficial end of the Fay Canyon Trail. Well, it's time to fly, so I hope you enjoyed coming along with me on Fay Canyon and checking out that little hidden arch. Don't forget to subscribe, and give me a thumbs up like on my video, and share with all your family and friends. Till next time, this is the Rockhopper, and I'll see ya.