Bell Rock: A Bell of Stone and the Sea Inside It

Along the highway between Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek sits a formation almost everyone recognizes on sight, Bell Rock, a broad sandstone dome shaped, as the name promises, like a bell. It is built from Permian red sandstone, and near its top you can pick out a thin band of gray limestone, left behind when a shallow sea briefly flooded this desert. Look closely at that gray stone and you may find ripple marks, the fossil imprint of tides that ran here before the dinosaurs.

Abraham James, one of the area's first settlers, is said to have named Bell Rock, along with several of its neighbors. Today the gentle Bell Rock Pathway lets almost anyone walk right up to its base, a nearly level trail that runs for miles beneath the red cliffs. Climbing higher is another matter.

Scramblers can reach a shoulder partway up, but the true summit demands a difficult, unmarked ascent with real exposure. From any height, though, the view of the valley is unforgettable.