The Coconino Annual Pass (and What Happened to the Grand Annual)

By Phalen Vitas — Sedona-based hospitality professional. Spotted something outdated? Tell us.

A surprising amount of the internet still tells you to buy a Grand Annual Pass in Sedona. You can’t — it no longer exists. Its replacement covers a different, smaller set of places than most people assume, and knowing which set is the whole game.

What the pass actually is

The official name is the Coconino Hospitality Annual Pass, though nearly everyone shortens it to “Coconino Annual Pass.” It costs $50 a year and is issued by Coconino Hospitality (928-203-0624), the private concessionaire that operates the five concession-run sites on the forest:

• Crescent Moon Picnic Site (Red Rock Crossing)
• Grasshopper Point
• Call of the Canyon (West Fork)
• Beaver Creek Day Use
• Lower Lake Mary (Flagstaff side)

Those five gates are its entire universe. Day fees there run $14–$15 per vehicle, so the annual pass is essentially a bulk purchase of creek-side day use.

The Grand Annual is gone

For years the concession sites sold a “Grand Annual Pass” — $40 originally, later $45. It has been discontinued and replaced by the $50 Coconino Hospitality Annual Pass. That is the entire story, but the old name refuses to die: forums, older blog posts and even some visitor-facing pages still quote a $40 or $45 Grand Annual as if it were current. If a site names that pass or those prices, treat everything else on the page as suspect too.

Why an official document can still be wrong

Here is a live example, and it is not a cheap shot at the agency. The Forest Service’s own Red Rock Ranger District recreation guide PDF still lists the Grand Annual Pass at $45. Every current concession-site page names the $50 Coconino Hospitality Annual Pass instead. Both come from the same source. One of them simply has not been reprinted since the pass changed.

Printed and PDF material ages quietly. A price is set, a document is published, the price moves, and the document stays where it is until somebody has reason to revise it. Nothing has gone wrong except time, and the guide remains useful for the many things in it that have not changed.

The lesson is about how to read a figure rather than who published it. An official source tells you a number was right when it was written. It does not tell you the number is right today. That is why every price on this site carries the date it was checked, and why the stamp at the top of this page names August 14, 2026 rather than saying “current”. If you find a $45 Grand Annual quoted anywhere, including in a government PDF, the date is the next thing to look for.

What it does not cover — read this twice

The Coconino Annual Pass is not a substitute for a Red Rock Pass. It buys nothing at any fee trailhead, vista or Forest Service picnic site — those run on an entirely separate system, and the two passes do not recognize each other in either direction. It carries no weight at Slide Rock or Red Rock State Park either. The name is the trap: “Coconino” sounds comprehensive, but the coverage is five gates, full stop.

The break-even math

At $15 per visit, four trips through those gates cost $60 — so the $50 pass pays for itself at four or more visits a year. Three visits or fewer, pay the day rate and keep your money. (Beaver Creek’s $14 fee barely moves the arithmetic.)

Two annual passes, no overlap

People arrive at this page assuming the $50 Coconino Hospitality Annual Pass is a larger version of the $20 Red Rock Pass annual. It is not. The two cover separate sets of places: the $20 annual covers Forest Service fee trailheads, vistas and picnic sites, and the $50 annual covers five concession-run gates. There is no site where one stands in for the other, and neither is an upgrade of the other. They are products of different operators, sold through different channels.

Which means a heavy Sedona year can genuinely justify both, at $70 in total. That is the right answer for someone who parks at fee trailheads regularly and also swims at the creek four or more times a year. It is the wrong answer for almost every single trip, where one pass or neither is usually enough. Work the two decisions separately — trailhead parking on one side, creek gates on the other — because nothing you buy on one side changes what you owe on the other.

Where to get one

The pass is sold in person at the concession sites themselves — ask at the fee gate. The Sedona Chamber Visitor Center is also cited as a sales point, but we have not confirmed that; call 928-282-7722 before making the trip. We found no online purchase path, and it is not sold on Recreation.gov, which handles the separate trailhead pass system.

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