Sedona & Verde Valley

The red rock country around Sedona, the Verde River towns below it, and Prescott, the old territorial capital on the far side of Mingus Mountain.

The Verde River rises near Paulden and runs more than 190 miles to the Salt River, and for part of that way it crosses a broad valley between the Mogollon Rim and the Black Hills. People have farmed here for well over a thousand years. Archeologists call the builders of the valley's pueblos and cliff houses the Sinagua, and the National Park Service counts more than 400 known dwellings in the Verde Valley, most of them closed to the public. Three that are open sit within a short drive of each other: Tuzigoot above Cottonwood, and Montezuma Castle and Montezuma Well near Camp Verde. Palatki and the Crane Petroglyph Heritage Site, both run by the Forest Service, add rock art to the list. At the valley's northern edge the rock turns red. Sedona, a city of 9,684 at the 2020 census, sits among sandstone buttes inside the Coconino National Forest, with Oak Creek Canyon climbing north toward Flagstaff. Cathedral Rock, the Chapel of the Holy Cross and two state parks on Oak Creek are the usual reasons to come, and they draw enough traffic that parking is the main planning problem. Both state parks closed after the Oak Creek flood of November 1, 2026, which also shut State Route 89A through Oak Creek Canyon; Slide Rock was due to reopen on November 7, while Red Rock and the canyon road north of Slide Rock stayed closed. The valley's other story is copper. Jerome, on Cleopatra Hill, grew into a mining town of many thousands and shrank to fewer than 100 people after the mines closed in 1953. Over the mountain from Jerome on State Route 89A is Prescott, capital of Arizona Territory from 1864 to 1867 and again from 1877 to 1889, at 5,319 feet and noticeably cooler than the valley floor. Interstate 17 runs along the eastern side, about 96 miles from Phoenix Sky Harbor to Camp Verde by road. Visitor numbers at Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot peak in March, April and October and fall away in the heat of July and August. The monsoon season runs from June 15 to September 30.