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| Hiking | 1.60 Miles |
720 AEG |
| | Hiking | 1.60 Miles | | | |
| 720 ft AEG | | | | |
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The Damifino Trail, at this writing, continues as an eminently passable and amply scenic passage for the intrepid hiker. The Damifino in Sedona, if you are familiar, branches off the Casner Canyon just after the Casner crosses Oak Creek. The Damifino then runs upward and southeastward through successive sections of low shrubs, open slick rock and finally wooded ledge, to meet the Hangover Trail at a midpoint in that trail.
The Damifino carries an unofficial, and thus unmaintained, status. The trail, evidently developed when the trail system around Sedona grew into somewhat of a mixed menagerie, failed to garner official recognition in the more recent efforts to create a more standard, stable system. So for example, in contrast to Damifino, Hangover Trail operates under official sanction, and Bear Mountain, once poorly marked, now sports sufficiently numerous white painted blazes. But to demonstrate the divide in recognition status, my look shows that no official sanction exists for the trail-of-sorts to the top of Pyramid Mountain southwest of Sedona.
But back to Damifino. The trail remains readily passable, but with a glitch or two. In terms of passability, the trailheads do not hide, with the upper trail head virtually looking one in the face at a switchback in Hangover as that trail passes between two red rock spires, and the lower trail head sits at a reasonably visible long log, laying slated against a tree, a few hundred feet after Casner Canyon crosses Oak Creek. The trail remains distinct, with the familiar compacted soil and rocks, and broken twigs and branches, of traveled trails. And critically, vegetation and underbrush have not in any significant way encroached or hidden trail, and no dead pines or fallen boulders block progress. Past build outs of rocks to create passable ledges appear to still survive. All this despite the trail not receiving ongoing maintenance.
But a few glitches loom. About 0.2 miles into the Damifino at the upper end, a rock fall, or soil slide, has scoured a twenty foot section, leaving a bare, open, slanted slick rock section. Nothing clearly indicates whether a trail ever existed across this bare stretch, but regardless of past history, no trail or even markings point the way. But no worries. At this writing, one can pass this gap by scrambling down a few feet to the bare rock, walking basically straight across, then scrambling back up the other side. Now the trail ends on either side of this opening do not lie exactly straight across from each other. So upon scrambling back up, one will find they one likely did not traverse the open to the trail end on the other side. So one must spy through the low vegetation and then push through this vegetation to regain a spot on the trail.
A second glitch bedevils the hiker, the lack of any trail blazes or cairns. So a GPS track proves helpful, maybe necessary. In the open slick rock section at about 0.4 miles in at the upper end, one might sense one should head down the terraced slick rock quickly, at a good downward angle. Such an approach might work, but the GPS track directs one to stay high and hike around at the same level to the more northern side before descending. Two warning barriers of stone and branches sit on this northern traverse to signal the approximate points to begin switchbacks to descend on the slick rock.
In the low shrub growth below the slick rock, the trail passes alternately through dense shrub and open rock expanse. When in a good number of the open expanses, the entries back to the trail through the shrub do not pop out at one. And the shrub, though only two or three feet high, has grown sufficiently dense to just wing it off-trail. So again a GPS track proves useful, maybe essential.
What GPS tracks? I extracted a track here at Hike Arizona prior to my taking the trail, and that track proved accurate and on point. I uploaded my own track, which matches, closely, the extracted track. Now my route on the slick rock section of Damifino meandered from the HAZ track, but my track does retain what I see as the essential step of rounding high to the more northern side.
As for trail biking, I do not, could not even attempt for fear of injury or permanent disability, attempt that sport, on any trail. But while bikers may in fact now use the Damifino, I don’t see anything but poor effort-reward. The twenty foot rock slide break, while an easy scramble for a hiker, would seemingly require huge and frustrating effort for a biker to stop and hoist a bike up and down to the bare rock, and through the vegetation. Once on the slick rock section, the biker would likely find excellent challenges, but the upper wooded section before that runs just flat and narrow, more pain to traverse by bike than pleasure. And the low shrub area might require stopping, annoyingly, to figure out how to re-enter the trail after each open area. Finally, at the Casner Canyon end, the trail descends via short, sharp switch backs, which again might require dismounts. And then one would need to cross the creek.
However I don’t bike, so these perceptions might prove just misperceptions.
Now back to hiking. I mentioned the scenic wonders. These begin upon exiting the short wooded section when starting at the Hangover end. At that point, we stand on an expansive spread of rounded and terraced slick rock, while above us towers a majestic red rock tower. While maybe not unlike other trails in Sedona, we have arrived in a location few will visit, and though we might have hiked but a moderate distance and height, we can allow ourselves the satisfaction of reaching a spot off the beaten path.
And as we traverse the slick rock, and descend through the shrubs of the lower section, we experience an unobstructed view of the red of Steamboat rock, the grand and towering heights of Wilson Mountain, and beyond that the stately Capital Butte. To our left and right loom rich red formations that we see up and close while others must observe them from the pull offs on Route 179, or across from Thompson trail and the like.
A final note. The Damifino allows an intriguing loop. With the Damifino, we can link the section of Casner Canyon Tail from the Creek up to the Mogollon Rim, to a section of Schnebly Hill Road, then down and around on Munds Wagon, Cows Pies and Hangover, the midpoint of which we pick up Damifino back down to Casner Canyon at the creek.
Enough said, so I will end with a simple note that Damifino remains open and available as a hiking option, a scenic joy, and a linking trail.
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