The weekend of April 14, 2012 turned out to be cold, snowy and rainy in Sedona. Dark, heavy clouds brought rain, hail and snow and the temperature on Saturday was only 38 degrees! Sunday was warmer so Paul and I hiked 3 trails that join together to make approx. 5.5 miles. The Soldier Pass trail starts off with a view of the Devil's Kitchen sinkhole which is a 50' deep sinkhole formed in the 1880s by a collapse in the Schnebly Hill sandstone. The trail is densely covered with pine trees, yucca, juniper, manzanita and opuntia cactus. After a couple of miles and approx. 600' elevation gain, we continued on the Brins Mesa trail. The views were amazing! The mesa is open and grassy but scarred with burned trees from a fire in 2006. From Brins Mesa we took another trail, Cibola which took us back to Soldier Pass making a loop.
