On Friday afternoon, we hiked broken arrow trail arriving at Submarine Rock. We joined Roilia, a Mexican fellow, who has lived in Sedona for a number of years. We sat together on the conning tower, or bridge, who knows the exact position and swopped stories. We were interested to ascertain how to make an ascent of Steamboat, a 1200 feet climb onto this massive slick, red rock. We had hiked in the valley across the way a few days earlier where we partly climbed what we thought was steamboat—apparently it was only a cruise ship.
Today, we set off to climb to the funnel at this prodigious rock, another we had missed in the past. Briefly, it looks like a boat; it’s awesome, a little scary and currently in drydock. With the temperature reaching the early 90’s, we were looking forward to sea spray keeping us cool and listening out for gulls. Roilia had mentioned that there is no trail; in fact, forest rangers do not welcome stowaways either. It’s not surprising we were the only passengers on board today. With this in mind, we searched for the best port of entry but missed it, causing us to near circle the steamboat at ‘water’ level (amounted to a few miles). With the application of some thought, we found a path and some 50 yards into it, we noticed a name and date inscribed on a rock—Roilia 5-1-12. We smiled as we received the message and confirmation.
We reached the top, which we suppose by a combination of both skill and foolishness—sometimes one of us wonders if it’s more of the latter—many of these rocks are fraught with danger. Anyway, once we got onboard, we headed up those slick rocks in quite an agile manner, if we might add. In only a couple of spots, we had to slow down to think our way through tricky climbs. At the peak, which was just below the funnel, we sat and looked down into the valley, across at the mountains, the shaped rocks and through the canyon. As we often mention, it is spectacular. We sometimes shudder at the time wasted in our earlier years of not taking advantage of what is available in the world.
The slick rock, not slippery when dry, gives us a thrill as we try to climb and return without using hands or the famous fifth point, the butt. The rock face is smooth for the most part but does have little cracks, indentations and sometimes grooves. The soles of the boots develop traction (hopefully) and one is able to glide up those rocks—it’s a great feeling.
In conclusion, as the adrenaline rush ‘kicked in’ while enjoying the steamboat, the earlier contemplation of foolishness and danger dissipated.
Cheers,
Jenni and Jeffrey
Submarine hike
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