Sedona

The round trip is under two kilometres, but partway up you use hands and feet on bare rock. The holds are shallow, and after rain the soles slide. On shuttle days the trailhead lot is closed outright, so leave the car at the park-and-ride in town.

Sandstone eroded away and left a natural span, among the biggest in this area. Standing on it, the deck is about a person and a half wide with no rail. The dirt road to the trailhead is rocky enough to stop a low car, and turning back early adds a long walk.

The butte looks like an upturned bell, and the flat loop around its skirt takes even a pushchair. Higher up the markers stop and the rock has to be handled, so how far you go becomes your own decision.

Oak Creek wore a groove into the sandstone and that groove works as a chute. The water is creek-cold even in high summer, and the rock is slick enough that you go down sitting. When bacteria counts rise, swimming is closed, so read the board before getting in.

A block of concrete is wedged between two rock spurs, its front a single cross. A sculptor's idea, drawn up by an architect trained under Frank Lloyd Wright, was finished in 1956. Inside holds a few rows of seats, so when it fills people wait outside.

A single runway lies on the flat top above town, and the saddle beside it is where people go for sunset. The parking bays number a handful and are charged by the hour, so getting up there an hour ahead of sunset is what secures a spot.

Under an overhang the Sinagua left rooms built of mud and stone. On the wall beside them, images from different eras overlap, so thousands of years press onto one surface. A daily limit applies and turning up without a booking means turning around at the gate.

Built in the 1970s in imitation of a town outside Guadalajara, with the courtyards, arches and fountains carried over. The old sycamores were not cut; the buildings were fitted around them, so trunks come up through the roofs.

People come to a handful of formations here believing energy spirals at them. No sign marks it; junipers grown with a screw-like twist are pointed out as proof. The Forest Service recognises none of it, yet the same four places appear in every guide.

The town capped the brightness and colour of outdoor light by ordinance in 2001. Street lamps stay low and yellow, and in 2014 it was certified an International Dark Sky Community. On a moonless night, stepping off the main road shows the Milky Way band.

The path follows a side stream deep into Oak Creek Canyon, crossing the creek on stepping stones over ten times in the first few kilometres. Late October, when leaves turn between the red walls, is peak season, and the trailhead lot is paid.

A five-storey dwelling the Sinagua built into a hollow halfway up a limestone cliff. It bears the Aztec emperor's name yet has no link to him. Declared a national monument in 1906, it has been closed to entry since 1951; you look up from the path below.

An old copper-mining village clinging to Cleopatra Hill, less than an hour's drive out of Sedona. People left when the mine closed in 1953, and the jail, shoved by blasting-loosened ground, still sits where it slid down the slope in one piece.

Near the start lies the Devil's Kitchen, a large sinkhole where the ground caved in; a little further, seven rain pools step down across the rock. The trailhead car park is tiny, so on weekends the village shuttle gets you there faster.

A tourist train out of Clarkdale that runs up the Verde River canyon and back on track laid in 1912 to haul copper. The round trip takes about 4 hours, and from the open-air cars in winter you can look for bald eagles perched in the riverside trees.