We are currently in Tucson, Arizona so I thought I’d post an update on our last day in Sedona before we left, and our travel day to get here. On our last day in Sedona we went out in the morning to do another hike along the ‘Soldier’s Pass Trail’. This had a few different spots to stop for photos and see the sights, before culminating in a “hidden” cave.

First stop was at a sink hole, which last collapsed in 1995 but is expected to collapse further again at some point. This was quite early on in the hike, so we moved on to the next point which was Seven Sacred Pools, a series of small holes which collect water, and were surprisingly still full even in the hot and dry climate in Arizona at this time of year.

We carried on along the hike until we reached the climb up to the cave, which was very steep and involved clambering over a load of rocks. At the end, there was a small opening to climb up, you’d hardly know it was there, but once you were inside, it opened up into this long cave as you can see from the pics:

There was another more open cave next to it, which you didn’t need to climb up into a hidden area to get to, but provided some nice views out over the area:

The Lost Dutchman Mine

The next day was a travel day to our next stop in Tucson, and we made a detour to visit the Lost Dutchman State Park:

The “Lost Dutchman Mine” is a legendary, supposedly rich gold mine hidden in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, named after a German immigrant called Jacob Waltz (nicknamed “the Dutchman”) who is said to have discovered it in the 19th century and kept its location a secret until his death, leading to countless unsuccessful searches by treasure hunters. Spoiler, we didn’t have any luck finding it either.

We did a hike around the area which took us through fields of cactuses in a very different landscape to what we’d seen before – this was very much a desert environment now, but the walk took us up to the foot of the Superstition Mountains and then back.

We arrived that evening then in Tucson and we are staying in a nice Airbnb this time, so it’s a welcome break from all the hotels we’ve been in. Somewhere we can cook, a lounge to sit, more space and no need to go out for dinner every night.

Lucy is going to post some updates from our first day in Tucson soon as well, so look out for that.

Si