Sedona, mapped honestly
The four vortex sites, the trails worth the drive, and the parking and pass rules that decide whether your day works — every number traced to the agency that publishes it.
Vortexes
All four sites on one map, pinned to official Forest Service trailhead coordinates. How far you really walk, and what it costs.
🥾Trails
Devil's Bridge, Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, West Fork — with the Forest Service's own distances, not crowdsourced ones.
🅿️Parking
Which trailhead lots close to private vehicles, which are just small, and where Uptown's free lots are.
🎫Red Rock Pass
$5 a day — but it buys you nothing at West Fork, Crescent Moon, or Slide Rock. The one distinction that gets visitors fined.
🚌The shuttle
Free, no reservation, Thursday–Sunday. The only legal way into Cathedral Rock on a weekend — and which routes are running today.
🎈Things to do
Dark Sky stargazing, cliff dwellings, Slide Rock, jeep routes and balloon flights — with prices from the operators themselves.
🍽️Eat
By area, with a strict test for which places actually have a red rock view — and which well-known ones have quietly closed.
🛏️Stay
Which areas suit which trips, which properties have real views, and the three big resorts that changed name.
🗓️Plan
NOAA weather month by month, the best time to come, and itineraries built around what's actually open.
🧭The four areas
Uptown, West Sedona, the Village of Oak Creek and Oak Creek Canyon — and which one isn't legally Sedona.
❓What is a vortex?
Where the idea came from, what the four-site list is based on, and what has and hasn't actually been measured.
Why this site exists
Sedona is unusually easy to get wrong. The pass you bought at the trailhead kiosk isn't valid nine miles up the canyon. The lot you planned around is legally closed four days a week. Half the published "vortex coordinates" disagree with each other by a few hundred feet, and a wildfire closure order right now has several of the most-searched trails shut entirely.
So the rule here is simple: every fee, distance, rule, and coordinate on this site comes from the agency that sets it — the Forest Service, the City of Sedona, Arizona State Parks — and each page says when we last checked. Where the official source is silent, like the number of spaces in most trailhead lots, we say it's unpublished instead of repeating someone's guess. That's less satisfying than a confident number. It's also the difference between a guide you can plan around and one you can't.