Devil’s Bridge Trail

June 28, 2020 tarannosaurus

Epic Travel → North America → Mountain States → Arizona → Sedona Area → Devil’s Bridge Trail

Location: North of Sedona, Arizona

Distance: 4.0 miles round trip (from Mescal Trailhead)

Elevation Gain: 560 feet

Time Required: 1-2 hours (add time if you want a photo on the bridge)

Red Tape/Notes: This is an incredibly busy and popular trail – start early to avoid some of the crowds. Most websites list the Dry Creek Road approach – we don’t recommend this approach unless you’re driving it with your high clearance 4WD. Instead, continue another couple of minutes down the road to the Mescal Trailhead on Long Canyon Road (Red Rock Pass is not required at this trailhead). Additional information on all hikes/approaches to the bridge can be found on the Coconino National Forest website here.

What’s Nearby?: Soldier Pass-Brins Mesa Loop, Waterfall Trail on Fossil Creek, Montezuma Castle, Tonto Natural Bridge State Park

As with all hikes that have become overly popular since the era of Instagram, this hike suffers from over-crowding which significantly diminishes the “wilderness” feel. It remains worth doing, however, since at 4 miles roundtrip it can be done quickly, and the hike itself affords beautiful views of the area with a nice final destination (the natural bridge, obviously). If you start early enough you can avoid a large portion of the people on the main part of the trail, and if you start early AND use our proposed route from the Mescal Trailhead, you should get at least half of the hike in relative solitude. We remain baffled as to why anyone would walk up Dry Creek Road to access the Devil’s Bridge Trailhead – this route is a dusty, boring thoroughfare and is actually 0.3 miles (0.6 miles round trip) longer than the Mescal/Chuckwagon approach. There must have been 50 cars parked around the Dry Creek Road “trailhead” compared with 15 at Mescal at 10am on a Saturday in February.

From the Mescal Trailhead on Long Canyon Road, it’s a pleasant 0.4 miles of easy hiking over a small creek and through trees to the intersection with the Chuckwagon Trail, where the views open up to that classic Sedona scenery for 0.6 miles until the intersection with the Devil’s Bridge Trail. At this point, you’ll join with the hoards of people who walked up the dirt road for the remaining mile until you reach the top of the bridge. Unless you’re here in the middle of the night, there will probably be a queue to walk across the bridge and get your picture taken. Unless you’re big on those sorts of photo ops, walking across the bridge isn’t particularly worth it, since the view is hardly better from the bridge compared to the queue. What does offer something special, though, is the much-less frequented trail to the base of the bridge. It splits off on the left, about 0.75 miles down the Devil’s Bridge Trail (0.25 miles from the top of the bridge) and leads about 0.2 miles to the base. Of the dozens of people on the trail to the top, we passed only four other people on our way to and from the base.