Which Sedona Trailheads Require a Red Rock Pass?

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 Spotted something outdated?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

Ask three sources which Sedona trailheads need a Red Rock Pass and you will get three different lists — including from the two official ones. This page pulls every fee site we can verify by name into one table, flags what is closed as of August 14, 2026, and shows you exactly where the sources disagree instead of papering over it.

How to read the table

Sites are grouped the way you will actually meet them: the in-town trailheads first, then picnic and observation sites, Oak Creek Canyon, the heritage sites, and finally the Flagstaff-area entries that appear on the Chamber’s list but are nowhere near Sedona. Every closure flag carries its date — closures in 2026 have moved in phases since the Pocket Fire, so check the linked Forest Service page or call (928) 203-7500 before driving to anything marked closed.

Rows tagged film have a full point-of-view walkthrough of the trail that leaves from that lot, shot start to finish and published on SedonaReady.

Both official lists include additional trailhead entries we could not yet match name-for-name between sources; rather than pad the table with guesses, we have held those rows back until the Ranger District confirms the roster in writing. The reconciliation section below explains exactly what is unresolved.

Four of Sedona’s busiest destinations — Crescent Moon, Grasshopper Point, West Fork, and Beaver Creek — are deliberately absent from this table. They are concession-run and the Red Rock Pass does not work there at all; they are covered on our page about sites that charge separately. Likewise, the Oak Creek Canyon picnic rows above are just the summary — the closure detail and reopening picture live on our Oak Creek Canyon picnic sites page, and the reservation rules for Palatki, Honanki, and Crane are on the heritage sites page.

How the pass behaves across these sites

Whichever rows apply to your plans, the mechanics are the same everywhere in the table’s Sedona groups. The pass belongs to the vehicle, not to a person or a trail: one valid pass on the dashboard — or one plate registered through an online purchase — covers everyone who arrived in that car, at any designated fee site, for as long as the pass runs. There is no per-trailhead ticket and no need to re-pay when you drive from Bell Rock Vista to Doe Mountain the same afternoon. The exceptions are structural, not per-site: the two shuttle-hours lot closures below, the Palatki reservation noted in the heritage rows, and the Flagstaff-area entries, which sit outside Sedona’s rate entirely.

One warning that follows from the vehicle rule: an America the Beautiful pass substitutes for the Red Rock Pass at every standard amenity row in this table, but display still matters — enforcement checks the windshield or the plate, not your glovebox. A valid pass nobody can see is, for citation purposes, no pass.

The 19-versus-26 problem, in the open

Here is the discrepancy no other guide will show you. The Sedona Chamber’s materials state that the Red Rock Pass covers 19 day-use sites. The Chamber’s own accompanying list contains 26 entries. Three of those 26 — Lava River Cave, Upper Lake Mary, and Lake Mary Narrows — sit in the Flagstaff area, and the two Lake Mary sites charge a $10 day rate rather than Sedona’s $5. Remove those three and you still do not land on 19.

The Forest Service’s fee tables complicate it further: they list a different set of sites under different names. No published source reconciles the two, and after checking both on August 14, 2026, neither could we — not completely. Some of the gap is naming: the same patch of dirt shows up as “Bell Rock Vista” in one list and “Bell Rock Pathway/Vista” in another; “Courthouse Vista” and “Courthouse Butte” appear to be one site; “Bear/Doe Mountain” is Doe Mountain; and Dry Creek Vista is a USFS picnic site that the Chamber calls Dry Creek Trailhead. Some of the gap is not naming, and that is the part we will not guess at.

So we do what the other lists do not: we decline to publish a definitive count. We have asked the Red Rock Ranger District for written confirmation of the official roster, and this page will be updated — with a dated entry — the day we receive it. Until then, the practical rule holds at every site in the table: designated fee site, pass on the vehicle.

Devil’s Bridge: the trailhead that is not on the list

Devil’s Bridge is Sedona’s most photographed arch, and people search for its “parking pass” constantly. The catch: there is no Devil’s Bridge fee lot to put a pass on. The common access is the Mescal trailhead — a designated fee site, in the table above — or the Dry Creek Vista/Mescal shuttle route, which requires no pass at all. If you park at Mescal, you need a valid pass on your vehicle exactly as at any other fee site.

Huckaby: one trail, two fee lots

The Huckaby Trail #161 is the table’s other quirk. It has no single home: you reach it either from the Schnebly Hill Trailhead or from the Midgley Bridge Observation Site, and both are designated fee sites — so whichever end you start from, the vehicle needs a pass. As of August 14, 2026, the Midgley Bridge end carries the conflicting-closure flag noted in the table, and we have not been able to verify the trail’s own post-fire condition. If Huckaby is the plan, start with a call to (928) 203-7500 and let the Schnebly Hill end be your fallback.

Cathedral Rock and Soldier Pass: when a pass is not enough

These two trailheads carry a flag no pass can clear. Whenever the Sedona Shuttle is operating, both lots are closed to private vehicles entirely — a Red Rock Pass, an America the Beautiful pass, any pass. The gates reopen to the public only after the shuttles stop for the day. During shuttle hours your options are to ride, or to hike in from elsewhere. Our shuttle page covers which trailheads the shuttle serves and when riding it beats buying a pass outright.

Frequently asked questions