Oak Creek Canyon Picnic Sites: Which Need a Pass
Before you plan a creekside lunch on the switchback drive between Sedona and Flagstaff, read the closure box below — this summer is not a normal season in the canyon. When things are running normally, four Forest Service picnic areas along SR 89A all sit inside the Red Rock Pass system, and your pass handles the parking at every one of them.
The four pass sites, in canyon order
| Site | Takes Red Rock Pass? | Character | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banjo Bill | Yes | Small creekside pullout, shaded tables close to the water | Closed — rockfall & flooding |
| Bootlegger | Yes | Compact site doubling as creek access for anglers | Closed — Pocket Fire |
| Encinoso | Yes | Roomier tables under the pines, mid-canyon | Closed — flood risk |
| Halfway | Yes | Aptly named midpoint stop, quick creek scramble | Closed — flood risk |
What the closure order actually covers
The order reaches further than the four picnic sites. It closes National Forest land within 100 feet of the West Fork drainage, and within 100 feet of Oak Creek from the point the creek enters National Forest land north of Call of the Canyon south to the private property boundary. Inside that strip it is being at the water that is prohibited, not merely parking near it.
Named in the order alongside Banjo Bill, Bootlegger, Encinoso and Halfway: Call of the Canyon, Grasshopper Point, Manzanita Campground and West Fork Trail No. 108. The stated reason is flash-flood danger in the watershed burned by the Pocket Fire — a hazard that outlasts the fire itself, which is why the dates run to the end of September rather than tracking the fire.
September 30 is when the order expires on paper. Whether the sites open on October 1 depends on the watershed, and the Coconino National Forest alerts page or a call to (928) 203-7500 will know before any calendar does.
The trails closed in the same watershed
A second order, 03-04-06-26-003, covers the trail network on the same burn scar and runs to the same dates, July 31 to September 30, 2026. It closes five trails outright, along with the land within 100 feet of each: Bear Sign No. 59, David Miller No. 164, Dry Creek No. 52, HS Canyon No. 50 and Secret Canyon No. 121.
Dry Creek Trail No. 52 is not Dry Creek Vista. They are two different places that share a name. Dry Creek Trail No. 52 is a trail in the burn area, and it is closed under the order. Dry Creek Vista is a Red Rock Pass trailhead parking area on the trailhead list, and a stop on one of the three Sedona Shuttle routes — the Dry Creek Vista and Mescal route, the usual approach to Devil’s Bridge. The closure order names the trail. It does not name the Vista.
The shuttle’s routes were all restored to full operation on July 31, 2026, the same day the closure orders took effect. If someone tells you Dry Creek is closed, ask which Dry Creek they mean, and confirm the current status of either before you build a day around it.
How parking works here in a normal season
Each site is a designated fee area: pull in, display a valid pass (or rely on your license plate if you bought online), and the tables are first-come, first-served. Daily passes purchased for a Sedona trailhead that morning are still good in the canyon — the pass follows the vehicle for the calendar day, not the location. On summer weekends the smaller lots, Banjo Bill especially, fill before noon; the canyon has almost no legal roadside overflow, and parking on the highway shoulder where it is posted will get you towed long before a pass question arises.
Winter is the sleeper season. The sycamores are bare, the crowds are gone, and a $5 daily pass buys you a creek that actually sounds like a creek.
The canyon’s split personality
Not every fee gate on this road answers to the Red Rock Pass. The two most famous stops in the canyon — West Fork and Grasshopper Point — are concession-operated and charge their own per-vehicle fees, pass or no pass. If your canyon day includes one of those, budget for a gate fee on top of whatever is on your dashboard; the picnic sites on this page are the ones your pass actually covers.
Midgley Bridge: the asterisk at the canyon mouth
Midgley Bridge Observation Site, just north of uptown Sedona, is a Red Rock Pass site too — the trailhead for Huckaby and Wilson Canyon and the classic bridge photo stop. Its current status is genuinely unclear: the Forest Service page showed it temporarily closed for fire impacts when we last checked, while Visit Sedona’s July 31 closure list omits it. That contradiction is exactly the kind of thing worth a two-minute call to (928) 203-7500 before you commit a morning to it.
Camping in the canyon
The Red Rock Pass is a parking permit. It buys no part of a campsite, and a campground booking buys no part of trailhead parking.
Two canyon campgrounds are taking bookings: Cave Springs and Pine Flat, both $30 a night for one vehicle and up to eight people, with each extra vehicle adding $10 a night. Pine Flat runs a season from mid-April to late October. Both are operated by Coconino Hospitality and booked through Recreation.gov. Manzanita is closed under the same order that shut the picnic sites. The stay limit across the Red Rock District is seven days. Senior and Access interagency passholders pay half the nightly rate — one of the few places where a federal pass does more for you than cover a parking space.
Sleeping anywhere else in the corridor is not an option: order 03-04-06-23-03, in force until January 2033, prohibits camping on National Forest land across the Sedona and Oak Creek corridor except inside Pine Flat, Cave Springs, Manzanita and Chavez Crossing — and it counts sleeping in a vehicle as camping, which is the detail that catches out people planning to pull over for the night on the switchbacks.
Common questions
Do the Oak Creek Canyon picnic areas take the Red Rock Pass?
Yes — Banjo Bill, Bootlegger, Encinoso, and Halfway are all standard amenity fee sites where the Red Rock Pass or an America the Beautiful pass covers parking. All four are temporarily closed as of August 14, 2026.
When will the picnic sites reopen?
Closure order 03-04-00-26-005 runs through September 30, 2026. That is the date the order expires, not a promise of reopening — orders get extended when flood risk persists, and occasionally lifted early. The Ranger District (928) 203-7500 has the current word.
Is West Fork one of the pass-covered picnic sites?
No. West Fork’s parking is the Call of the Canyon concession site with its own $15 per-vehicle fee, and neither the Red Rock Pass nor America the Beautiful is accepted there.
Can I picnic at a trailhead instead while the canyon sites are closed?
Nothing stops a tailgate lunch at a pass-covered trailhead lot, though you will trade creek shade for open sun. Fee rules are identical — a displayed or plate-registered pass while parked.
Where exactly is Banjo Bill?
On the west side of SR 89A roughly five miles north of Sedona, between Grasshopper Point and the Slide Rock area — a small signed pullout that is easy to overshoot; northbound, start watching after Grasshopper Point.
If you wanted the creek, not the picnic table
Huckaby drops to Oak Creek on foot from the Midgley Bridge end of the canyon, at the Sedona side rather than up the switchbacks. SedonaReady has a point-of-view film of the full walk, so you can judge the descent and the creek crossing before you call about access.
- Coconino NF: Banjo Bill Picnic Site — pass requirement, closure
- Coconino NF: Bootlegger Picnic Area — pass requirement, closure
- Coconino NF: Encinoso Picnic Site — pass requirement, closure
- Coconino NF: Halfway Picnic Site — pass requirement, closure
- Coconino NF: Midgley Bridge Observation Site — pass requirement, conflicting closure status
- Visit Sedona: Pocket Fire updates — phased reopening, creek restrictions
- Coconino NF: Oak Creek Temporary Area Closure, order 03-04-00-26-005 — dates, named sites, 100-foot creek buffer
- Coconino NF: Pocket Fire Temporary Area & Trail Closure, order 03-04-06-26-003 — the five closed trails, dates
- Coconino NF: forest alerts and closure orders — order status, camping order 03-04-06-23-03
- Recreation.gov: Cave Springs Campground — nightly rate, vehicle and occupancy limits
- Recreation.gov: Pine Flat Campground — nightly rate, season
- Sedona Shuttle: how to ride — routes, July 31, 2026 return to full operation