Hike: Cathedral Rock/Templeton Trail/Baldwin Loop – Sedona 2017

Cathedral Rock and Baldwin Loop

According to my AllTrails.com recording of this hike (April 28, 2017), it was:

Distance: 5.2 miles
Elevation Gain: 1076 feet
Moving Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
Total Elapsed Time: 2 hours 53 minutes
Average Speed: 2.4 mph

My first hike of my third trip to Sedona, AZ was to finally go all the way up Cathedral Rock.

The first year that I visited Sedona in 2015, I walked up the trail that goes around Cathedral Rock, but not the actual climbing part that goes up to Cathedral Rock itself. It looked too intimidating, even though I saw plenty of middle aged people and lots of kids going up there. It couldn’t be THAT bad.

But finally, in my 2017 trip, I decided to do it. Finally having the right hiking shoes helped with that decision, too. I knew that a lot of the climb was scrambling up some very smooth and slick rocks, which can be very dangerous if you don’t have the right kind of shoes. You need good traction to be able to safely climb up and down these kinds of rocks.

After going up to Cathedral Rock, hanging out up there and even doing some yoga poses (as you do), I made my way back down and then took Templeton Trail down to go all the way around Baldwin Loop, then back up Templeton Trail to the parking lot for Cathedral Rock.