Sedona - Huckaby Casner Damifno Munds Loop

Rating	*****
length	9.8 mile - 4 hours 30 minutes (round trip). Moderate/Hard.
Height	4270 - 5240 feet
Access	All Cars, see below.
Other Trails
Data	To download these files, right-click the link and choose 'save as' |--| GPX (GPS file) |-----| KML (Google Earth file)

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One of my favorite trails in Sedona. With a great canyon hike and beautifully views crossing the Mitten Ridge.

Starting points are:
The Huckaby trail head parking at the schnebly hill road. (all cars)
Further along the road at the cow pies. (high clearance)
The Midgley Bridge or Grasshopper, for the last one there is probably an extra fee required. (all cars)

Take the Huckaby trail (see descriptions elsewhere on this site)
After the 2 crossings with Oak Creek, go uphill and at the crossing take the Grasshopper trail. This trail ends at the road to the parking below.
You have to follow the road downhill for a short while. At the parking below on the left side is the Allen Bend Trail head, follow this trail along Oak Creek.
At about 600 Yards take a crossing that bends slightly to the right. (There are a lot of trails in this area)
At the Casner Canyon trail head, go right straight for Oak Creek on an obvious trail. But this may not be the best crossing.
We went less then a 100 Yards upstream (left) and found an excellent place to cross, without getting your feet wet (April 2009). (With fisherman on the other side).

After the creek crossing, the easiest one of the 3, go downstream again to pick up the trail that leads left into the canyon (East).

The Damifno trail, an excellent unofficial trail, easy to miss without GPS.
We went strait past it even though we knew it was there.
It is about 300 Yards from the Crossing on the right. A narrow trail goes rather steep uphill. Look back a couple of times, because I think the trail is easier to spot from that direction.
(see the Damifno Trail description on this site the Damifno-Casner-Munds-Loop)
Once the trail is found an excellent trail goes uphill.
Follow the cairns, my wife had a lot of energy left, to place a lot of new ones.
As you reach slick rocks, the first rule is stay level until the end, go uphill and go in the opposite direction and stay level.
First go left, uphill, go right and stay level.
With GPS it will be fairly easy to follow, otherwise rely on the cairns.
Keep in mind that around the bend the trail stays level most of the way to Mittens Ridge that can clearly be seen.
There is a difficult stretch, with a rather steep part where you can easily go a long way down.
What we do is go a bit uphill (not more than 10 yards) so there is some dirt and scrubs between you and the steep part below. If you misstep you don't go all the way down. This is a short stretch and you almost immediately have to go down to the same level again (lower).
Now the easy level hike to the saddle of Mitten Ridge.
Descend keeping left after passing the Mitten Ridge and go down a bit. After that the trail stays mostly level in the direction of the Cow Pies (left). On this part there are probably more hikers. The Cow Pies itself are rather uneventful close by, the best views are from above (e.g. The Munds Mountain trail).

At the Cow Pies trail head, cross the road and the parking (south), until you hit the Munds Wagon trail (that is just across the road). Go downhill (right/west) all the way to the parking.
This part of the trail has beautifully views and it is a bit close to the dirt road, with its noisy (pink/yellow/red) jeeps. (see description of the Munds Wagon Trail)

This hike depends on Oak Creek, so when the water is high you may not be able to make it.
When the crossing isn't repaired yet you may have a problem as well.
In this case you will have to hop and wade Oak Creek (be careful don't do this when the water is high)(the park service recommends this trail from April - November. We hiked this one in April 2009 and all 3 crossings where easy to do, without getting anything wet.

There is very little shade on this hike except on parts of the Huckaby trail.

Hiking time: 4 Hour 32 Round trip.
Huckaby to Grasshopper: 1 Hour 7 Min.
Grasshopper to Allens Bend: 13 Min.
Allens Bend to Crossing right (Point H): 8 Min.
Crossing right (Point H) to Casner Canyon trail head: 6 Min.
Casner Canyon trail head to Crossing Damifno: 13 Min.
Crossing Damifno To Mitten Ridge: 1 Hour.
Mitten Ridge to Cow pies trail head: 35 Min.
Cow pies trail head to Huckaby trail head: 1 Hour 10 Min.







Disclamer: Read this first before you start your hike.
Contact: usa/at/e/f/m/e/r/.eu (leave out the /)
All hikes recorded on pocket loox (pocket PC) using gpsTuner(.com)
Hiking Huckaby Casner Damifno Munds Loop Sedona Arizona, Hike with gps, gpx and kml (Google Earth).