Hiking in Sedona, Arizona & Patagonia, Chile

Color in Sedona, Arizona and Patagonia, Chile by Tim Ghazzawi:

Despite the fact that the most notable rock formations in Sedona are named after rather everyday things (bell, coffee pot, court house, and steamboat to name a few), its setting is anything but ordinary. Nor is it easily defined. Sedona is not a sandy desert, though it can feel devastatingly dry. There is greenery, low and prickly. But no wavy dunes. Its most defining characteristic is the color of its ground rock. A scorched brick red. At times orangey like a bad spray tan. Yellowy even beige-like near the top of the taller towers. Ombre façades on an expansive rocky geography.

I remember my last day in Sedona hiking just after sunrise. It was August and hot. The trails were empty as I made my way up Cathedral Rock. I eventually came to a sign that read “END OF TRAIL” but felt dissatisfied. I was confident there was more to see, higher places to climb. I was also sad to be leaving Arizona that day and looking for ways to extend my stay there. So I passed the sign with a mix of determination and curiosity, scrambling off-trail with a confident sure-footedness that I hadn’t had all trip.

Upon reaching a different landing with sufficient space to sit and rest and also a proper panoramic view of the area, I caught my breath. The sight was stunning. Mars-like. A miniature “red planet” if only with a thin layer of green on its surface. Harsh, desolate, lonely, and yet demanding to be explored. And then I looked down. Someone had chiseled my name, maybe our name, into the red rock of the isolated alcove I’d mused was all my own. What are the chances, I thought, and I proceeded to climb back down.

In the heart of Torres del Paine, Chile’s most heralded national park, the company BigFoot Patagonia offers a different sort of color experience. Thrice daily kayak trips embark for the waters of Lago Grey, which at one end is bound by an imposing blue glacier wall. On the day of our journey there, my brother and I shared a kayak. Floating ice chips of all shapes and sizes scattered themselves across the lake’s calm waters. Having broken off from their larger original glacier body, these icebergs endure a life of continuous shape-shifting, exposed to the elements of sun, wind, and rain, and also us humans.

The chasm-like mass we encountered not far from glacier wall was the most momentous find of our day. It looked like a surfer’s wave tumbling over itself, only frozen in time. A block of ice that had been hollowed out in such cavernous fashion that it was impossible not to feel invited inside. It must have collapsed, our guide told us. It had not always been hollow. And he would not let us go in. He was worried its roof would collapse even further.

Most striking about this formation was that, though the outer part of it retained a traditional white ice-like color, its insides were penetrating shades of blue. As if dyed like an easter egg or painted over by brush stroke. Intensely blue and nothing like the ice in our freezers. Our guide said that it had something to do with light refraction angles and the age of the ice, itself. I can’t claim to much understand the science behind Sedona’s red and Patagonia’s blue. Still the breathless thrill and admiration I felt for nature’s beauty overwhelmed me all the same in those moments. The search for my next color experience steadfast and inspired.

THE FACTS

I traveled to Sedona, AZ by myself for a few days in August of 2017 and to Patagonia with my brother in the spring of 2018. To get to Sedona, I flew to Phoenix (PHX) and then shuttled to Sedona where I checked into my Airbnb. For information about my Chile trip, check out the story “Two Blue Houses”.

If you enjoyed reading about my experiences hiking in Sedona, Arizona and Patagonia, Chile, you might also check out the following stories related to other nature adventures: