Having been hiking and crawling all over the Superstitions and other trails in the valley, I felt super ready to get started with the first hike on the list. On paper, Bear Mountain shows a relatively easy 5 miles with an impressive but doable climb of about 2k feet. What did not occur to me, though, was the nearly 3,000ft difference in elevation between Mesa and Sedona.

But let's back up a bit. Coming in from Phoenix, I left the house at 5am and the drive was nice and traffic free all the way into Sedona. I did have a hard time finding the trailhead at first because I was trying to follow the directions given by Social Hiker. It's much easier to just pull up the AllTrails map of the trail and use their directions to get to it. Twice I ended up at the entrance to the Enchantment Resort and explaining to the gate guard that I was a little lost. The trailhead luckily has the machine to purchase your permit, which is nice ($5 purchase for a Red Rock Pass) and there are restrooms in the parking lot. Just be aware that the Bear Mountain Trailhead is actually across the road — Doe Mountain is the one right from the parking lot.

I got started right at 8am and had a total moving time of 3 hours, but car-to-car was almost exactly 5 hours to account for frequent breaks and snacks and pictures at the top. If you aren't ready for the elevation, like I wasn't, it can be a bit confusing why you're short of breath with heavy legs right from the start. And then the climb starts. In my mind, I'd break this up into 3 discrete sections. The first section starts gentle then turns steep, then the middle section levels off at the first false summit then climbs again, then the last covers the climb to the actual summit. There are quite a few false summits along the way you'll know for sure you're at the end because of the unmissable “Trail End” sign.

The climb is, in parts, steep and unrelenting and often along awkwardly angled rock. I'd highly recommend bringing trekking poles if you have them, if at least for coming down. The trail is clearly marked, but it still can be easy to lose. If you use AllTrails or GutHook or another app it would be helpful to go ahead and download the map ahead of time if you can, that way you don't have to worry about getting too far off track.

Bring plenty of water (for me, 2liters was barely enough), a snack for the top, sunscreen (there are some shady bits for resting though) and try to get started before 8am. If your time is close to mine, you'll start getting into the heat of the day before you're done and even though it's cooler than the valley, it can still be hot.