Two neighbors, same trailhead parking lot, opposite convictions. One says Devil's Bridge has been closed all summer because of the fire. The other says everything reopened weeks ago, so why is anyone still worried. Neither one is entirely wrong. They are just talking about different trails, and that gap between what people believe and what the Forest Service actually has on paper is the real story in Sedona right now, six weeks out from the best hiking stretch of the year.
Here is what happened. The Pocket Fire started June 19 north of town in the Coconino National Forest and eventually burned 27,393 acres before crews reached full containment on July 30. For most of the summer, the closure that followed was broad: a wide swath of the forest, off limits, full stop. That single sweeping order is the version still living in a lot of people's heads. It's also the version that stopped being accurate on July 31.
What Actually Changed On July 31
The day after containment, the Forest Service retired the broad order and replaced it with two much narrower ones. The first, Order 03-04-06-26-003, closes exactly five named trails tied to the burn scar: Dry Creek Trail No. 52, Bear Sign Trail No. 59, Secret Canyon Trail No. 121, HS Canyon Trail No. 50, and David Miller Trail No. 164. The second, Order 03-04-00-26-005, closes West Fork Trail No. 108 along with a stretch of Oak Creek and the recreation sites that sit on it, including Grasshopper Point, Banjo Bill, Bootlegger, Call of the Canyon, Encinoso, Halfway, and Manzanita Campground. That closure exists because a burned watershed floods differently than a healthy one, and monsoon storms moving over bare slopes can send debris down a canyon with almost no warning.
Both orders run through September 30 unless the Forest Service rescinds them earlier, which means the current map has an expiration date built into it. That is worth remembering if you are the kind of person who checks a closure list once a season and calls it settled.
Everything else on the list that made the news in June, the trails people actually talk about, came off the closure order that same Friday. Devil's Bridge, Boynton Canyon, Soldier Pass, Brins Mesa, Wilson Mountain, Fay Canyon, Doe Mountain, and Bear Mountain are not named in either current order. Neither are Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock Pathway, Courthouse Butte Loop, Little Horse, Broken Arrow, or Airport Loop. The Sedona Shuttle resumed its Route 11 Dry Creek Vista and Mescal service and its Route 14 Soldier Pass service that same morning, which is usually the fastest tell that a trail corridor is genuinely back in operation, since the city does not run buses to a trailhead it has to keep telling people not to use.
The Part That Actually Trips People Up
Here is the detail that generic hiking roundups miss, and it's the reason the confusion at that trailhead parking lot is so understandable. Dry Creek Trail No. 52, the one still closed under the current Pocket Fire order, is not the same thing as Dry Creek Road, Dry Creek Vista Trailhead, or the shuttle stop that shares its name. Dry Creek Road is the paved approach that runs out to the Dry Creek Vista parking lot, which most hikers use to reach Devil's Bridge by way of the Chuckwagon Trail or Forest Road 152. Dry Creek Trail No. 52 is a separate, specific trail affected by the burn scar. You can drive Dry Creek Road, park at Dry Creek Vista, catch the shuttle, and hike to Devil's Bridge with no conflict at all. What you should not do is wander onto the actual Dry Creek Trail segment near the closure boundary, because that piece of ground is legally off limits until the order lifts or the date passes, whichever comes first.
The same logic applies to Slide Rock State Park. The park is open, vehicles can drive in, and the grounds are operating normally. The Oak Creek swim area inside the park is a different matter. That specific stretch of water stays closed until October 1 because of the same flash-flood and debris risk driving the West Fork closure upstream. So the confusion isn't really about whether Sedona is open. It is open, and has been for weeks. The confusion is about which specific named segment of a familiar place still carries a legal restriction, and that is a distinction worth getting right before you plan a Saturday around it.
What's Open Right Now
If you are mapping out a hike this month, this is the working list as things stand in mid-September:
- Devil's Bridge Trail No. 120, via Mescal Trailhead or Chuckwagon Trail
- Boynton Canyon Trail No. 47
- Soldier Pass Trail No. 66
- Brins Mesa Trail No. 119
- Wilson Mountain Trail No. 10
- Fay Canyon, Doe Mountain, and Bear Mountain
- Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock Pathway, and Courthouse Butte Loop
- Little Horse, Broken Arrow, and Airport Loop
- All three Sedona Shuttle trailhead routes, including Route 11 to Dry Creek Vista and Mescal and Route 14 to Soldier Pass
What's Still Closed Through September 30
The trails and sites still under the two active orders:
- Dry Creek Trail No. 52, Bear Sign Trail No. 59, Secret Canyon Trail No. 121, HS Canyon Trail No. 50, and David Miller Trail No. 164
- West Fork Trail No. 108 and the adjoining stretch of Oak Creek
- Grasshopper Point, Banjo Bill, Bootlegger, Call of the Canyon, Encinoso, Halfway, and Manzanita Campground
- The Oak Creek swim area inside Slide Rock State Park, until October 1
If a trail isn't on either list, treat that as a reason to check the Coconino National Forest alerts page or call the Red Rock Ranger District before you commit a Saturday to it. Conditions on a recovering burn scar move faster than any list, including this one.
The Six Weeks That Actually Matter
The timing here isn't incidental. September and October are when Sedona's weather does its best work, and the calendar over the next six weeks backs that up with more going on than most residents are tracking day to day. The Sedona Rock, Gem & Jewelry Show runs October 3 and 4 at Red Rock High School. The Sedona Arts Festival, a three-decade local tradition that has raised more than $350,000 for arts education over the years, lands October 10 and 11. Fest of Fall and the return of Pumpkin Splash both hit Posse Grounds Park on October 17, the same Saturday the Red Rocks of Sedona trail races send runners across the Hi-Line Trail on courses that start at the United Methodist Church and finish at Verde Valley School. And the Sedona Plein Air Festival takes over D.A. Ranch and the Sedona Arts Center from October 16 through 24, a week of artists working outdoors across the ranch's vineyard grounds and orchards, most of it open for anyone to walk through and watch.
None of that competes with the trail closures for attention. It runs alongside them. The same watershed logic that keeps West Fork closed through the end of the month is also why the canyon walls will be doing their best color work right when Plein Air artists are out painting them. Fall in Sedona this year is arriving with an unusually specific set of rules attached, and knowing which ones apply to which trail is the difference between a wasted morning and a good one.
If you're weighing a move to Sedona and want a read on how a specific street or canyon corridor actually functions day to day, not just what the listing photos show, Anthony Escobar has spent years working this market and the short-term rental side of it. Let's connect and schedule a strategy call.
