The Subway Cave! (Boynton Canyon, part 3)
Sedona Travelog #9
Sedona, AZ - Sun, 29 May 2022, 12:30pm
We found the Subway Cave!
It turned out it wasn't hard to find.... We just had to wait until around midday when the trail was really crowded with noob hikers who saw it on Instagram (noobs don't know to get an early start like we did) then look for where the scads of people were going. At an unsigned trail junction a bit farther out from our butterfly spotting side trip there were, like, twenty people standing around in a gaggle talking about the Subway Cave.
The side trail of about half a mile, maybe three-quarters, led back to a rock formation in a side canyon. I knew from seeing an Instagram picture that the Subway Cave is not really a cave, per se, but a layer in the sandstone rock that's eroded out from the layers above and below it, forming a C shape is cross-section. And I could see from where everyone was going... or trying to go... that it would take a scramble to get up there.
There were actually two routes up to the ledge level. The safer one was a scramble up dirt and rocks with some trees to hang onto. The more fun one was this scramble up bare rock through a slot. People who've never rock-scrambled before and/or had footwear without good grip (Instagram hiking noobs were just as likely to be here in walking shoes as anything else) were slipping, sliding, and giving up. So once a bunch of them cleared out I scrambled up.
Like I said, the Subway Cave is not a cave, per se. The part with a solid roof over it doesn't go that deep into the rock. But it's called subway because it does look a bit like the curvature of a subway tunnel on the side. Well, some subway tunnels have curved sides.
With the Subway Cave being so popular it was difficult to get pictures without other people in them. I succeeded in getting a few, but I also figured if I've got to have other people in my pictures, I'll encourage them to do nice things. 😂
Stay tuned... more to come!
Update: keep reading in Cliff Dwellings & Subway Cave
Sedona, AZ - Sun, 29 May 2022, 12:30pm
We found the Subway Cave!
It turned out it wasn't hard to find.... We just had to wait until around midday when the trail was really crowded with noob hikers who saw it on Instagram (noobs don't know to get an early start like we did) then look for where the scads of people were going. At an unsigned trail junction a bit farther out from our butterfly spotting side trip there were, like, twenty people standing around in a gaggle talking about the Subway Cave.
The side trail of about half a mile, maybe three-quarters, led back to a rock formation in a side canyon. I knew from seeing an Instagram picture that the Subway Cave is not really a cave, per se, but a layer in the sandstone rock that's eroded out from the layers above and below it, forming a C shape is cross-section. And I could see from where everyone was going... or trying to go... that it would take a scramble to get up there.
There were actually two routes up to the ledge level. The safer one was a scramble up dirt and rocks with some trees to hang onto. The more fun one was this scramble up bare rock through a slot. People who've never rock-scrambled before and/or had footwear without good grip (Instagram hiking noobs were just as likely to be here in walking shoes as anything else) were slipping, sliding, and giving up. So once a bunch of them cleared out I scrambled up.
Like I said, the Subway Cave is not a cave, per se. The part with a solid roof over it doesn't go that deep into the rock. But it's called subway because it does look a bit like the curvature of a subway tunnel on the side. Well, some subway tunnels have curved sides.
With the Subway Cave being so popular it was difficult to get pictures without other people in them. I succeeded in getting a few, but I also figured if I've got to have other people in my pictures, I'll encourage them to do nice things. 😂
Stay tuned... more to come!
Update: keep reading in Cliff Dwellings & Subway Cave