Climbing Cathedral Rock... Finally!

Sedona Travelog #16
Cathedral Rock - Tue, 31 May 2022, 8am

Today is our last day in Sedona. Actually it's our last half day as we need to leave at noon. This whole trip, climbing Cathedral Rock has been my #1 priority. Now, in our last few hours in town, we're doing it. Finally!



Why wait so long? Crowds. Cathedral Rock is not just my #1 priority but high on the lists of many of the area's visitors. There's only a small parking lot down in the canyon at its foot. On the weekends the town blocks off the road to private cars and runs a mandatory shuttle service. Taking the shuttle wouldn't have worked for us; it would've aggravated Hawk's back. Plus, hiking this trail alongside multiple hundreds of people would have aggravated our spirits. So we took advantage of our longer-than-normal weekend plan to come here on Tuesday.

Once again we awoke at 6 this morning and left the hotel by 7. The trailhead was only a few miles' drive. Even so, at 7:15am on a Tuesday, we got the last parking spot.



The trail up Cathedral Rock starts out innocently enough, crossing a sandy wash then rising up the opposite side. Pretty soon the sandy ground ends, though, and the trail traverses bare rock. Stacks of rocks, called cairns, mark the recommended route. You can see some of them in the next photo.



The trail starts to get steep. That's not surprising, though, if you either 1) do the basic math: the trail rises 800' in 0.7 miles; or b) just look up. 🤣

The enormous scale in the photo above makes it hard to appreciate how steep the trail is even where those folks near the bottom of the frame are hiking. Here the trail climbs over a set of rock ledges each about 4' high. For a person with good footwear who's done this sort of thing before, it's not hard. ...Edit: for a tall person, etc., etc., it's not hard. Hawk had to go hunting for easier approaches to obstacles I just clambered over.

And then the trail gets tougher. Way tougher. Stay tuned!

2022 California Primary

It's election time in California! ...Well, it's primary election time. Our state-wide primary is tomorrow. ...Actually it's been most of the past 4 weeks already. More on that below.

This year's primary brings a wealth of choices, both in the candidates on the ballots as well as how to vote. The races up for election this year include all of the state constitutional offices:

• Governor
• Lt. Governor
• Attorney General
• Secretary of State
• Treasurer
• Controller
• Insurance Commissioner
• Member of State Board of Equalization (5 geographical districts)
• Superintendent of Public Instruction

For federal offices, we have the race for Congress (it's every 2 years anyway) plus the US Senate seat occupied presently by Alex Padilla. Curiously there are two elections for Padilla's seat! One's to finish out his present term— he was nominated by the governor to replace Kamala Harris after she won election as Vice President in 2020— which ends in November this year. The other race, the main race, is for who'll hold that office for the next 6 years. Then there local races: State Senator and Assembly Member; and County Tax Assessor, District Attorney, and Sheriff. Finally there two local bond measures. There are no propositions or referendums. Thankfully the state passed some reform a while back limiting those to general elections.

"Jungle" Primary, So Many Choices

Years ago California switched to a so-called "jungle" primary system. Instead of each party holding its own primary to nominate a candidate who advances to the general election, all candidates from all parties run in a single, open primary. The top two vote-getters in each race advance to the general election in November.

Part of the reason this system is referred to as a jungle primary is that it produces a huge number of choices. Instead of 2, 3, or 4 candidates vying for each party's nomination, across 5-6 parties, they're all in one race. Plus all the independents are there, too. For governor this year there are 26 candidates. ...Though even that is way less to process than the 46 candidates who ran to replace Gov. Newsom in the 2021 recall election.

So Many Ways to Vote

After years of seeing Republicans in many states drastically reducing access to the vote— which is proven to hit minority voters disproportionately hard and is exactly why they do it— it's refreshing to see that California is making access to the vote ever easier. ...No, I don't mean loosening the requirements around checking that ballots are cast (only) by registered voters; I mean the choices that we registered voters have in casting our ballots.

• Early voting in-person was available as early as May 8.


• Additional polling stations opened 10 days ago and even more 3 days ago.


• Polling station hours are longer tomorrow, Election Day.


• And finally, every California voter is eligible to vote by mail. Mail ballots can either be sent by mail or dropped off at lockboxes.

I'm choosing the option that best respects my time and my confidence. I'm filling out my ballot tonight, sealing it and signing the envelope, then dropping it off at the lockbox at the city library (across the street from City Hall) tomorrow.