Drive north on 89A toward Call of the Canyon and you will hit a barricade well before you reach the trailhead. If your last hike out that way was in June, before the smoke, it is easy to assume the closure sign is just old fire tape nobody has taken down. It is not. The gate is legally enforced through September 30, and the reason has almost nothing to do with where the Pocket Fire actually burned.
That distinction matters if you are planning a hike in the next two and a half weeks, because Sedona's trail map right now is not one closure slowly lifting. It is two separate legal orders that cover different problems, on different timelines, for different reasons. Confusing them is how you end up turning around at a locked gate on a trail you assumed reopened months ago, or skipping a trail that has actually been open since July.
The Broad Closure Split in Two, and Most People Missed It
The Pocket Fire started June 19 near the East Pocket Lookout, roughly seven miles north of town in the Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness, and eventually burned 27,393 acres before crews reached full containment on July 30. For six weeks, the Forest Service ran one wide closure order covering most of the area northwest of Sedona and much of Oak Creek Canyon.
That changed at 6 a.m. on July 31. The Forest Service replaced the broad order with two narrower ones, and this is the part that got lost once the "fire is contained" headlines ran their course. Order 03-04-06-26-003 closes five specific named trails inside the actual burn scar: Dry Creek Trail No. 52, Bear Sign Trail No. 59, Secret Canyon Trail No. 121, HS Canyon Trail No. 50, and David Miller Trail No. 164, along with land within 100 feet of each. Order 03-04-00-26-005 is a different animal entirely. It closes West Fork Trail No. 108, stretches of Oak Creek itself, and a cluster of recreation sites, Banjo Bill, Bootlegger, Call of the Canyon, Encinoso, Grasshopper Point, Halfway, and Manzanita, not because those areas burned, but because the terrain above them did. Both orders run through September 30 unless rescinded early, according to Coconino National Forest's alerts page, which is still listing both as active as of this week.
What's Already Been Handed Back
If your regular loop is one of Sedona's marquee hikes, there is a decent chance you already have it back and didn't need this article to know it. Devil's Bridge, Soldier Pass, Boynton Canyon, Brins Mesa, Wilson Mountain, Fay Canyon, Doe Mountain, Bear Mountain, and Huckaby are not named in either current order. Neither are Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock Pathway, Courthouse Butte Loop, Little Horse, or Broken Arrow. Sedona Shuttle Routes 11 (Dry Creek Vista/Mescal) and 14 (Soldier Pass) resumed regular service the same morning the narrower orders took effect, and Route 15 to Cathedral Rock has kept running the entire time, with the usual Thursday through Sunday private-vehicle restriction still in place at that trailhead while the shuttle operates.
In practical terms, the trails that draw the heaviest weekday and weekend traffic in Sedona were never part of the extended closure window. What's still off the table is a smaller, more specific list, and it splits into two categories that behave differently.
Two Different Reasons to Stay Out
The five trails under the burn-scar order are closed because the ground under them is unstable in the way freshly burned slopes are unstable: loose ash, standing dead trees, and soil that no longer holds together the way it did in May. That's a straightforward hazard and it's the one most people picture when they hear "fire closure."
West Fork and the Oak Creek corridor are closed for a different reason, and it's the one that trips people up. The fire itself stayed well north of much of that creek corridor. What closed it is what happens when a burn scar meets a monsoon storm: bare slopes shed rain fast instead of absorbing it, and that water carries ash, sediment, and debris straight downhill into the drainages below, including stretches of creek the fire never directly touched. That's also why Slide Rock State Park's Oak Creek swim area stays closed until October 1 even though the park itself remains open to vehicles. You can drive in and visit, but walk-in, bicycle, and drop-off entry are not permitted, and nobody's getting in the water there yet.
The Devil's Bridge Workaround Worth Knowing
Here's where the two-order structure actually helps you. Dry Creek Trail No. 52 is closed under the burn-scar order, and if that's the route you've always used to reach Devil's Bridge, you might assume the whole destination is off limits. It isn't. Devil's Bridge Trail No. 120, along with Mescal and Long Canyon, are not named in either current order and don't rely on the closed Dry Creek segment to get there. The Mescal approach works, and it's the same corridor Shuttle Route 11 serves, so if you'd rather not fight for trailhead parking, that option is already running.
What September 30 Actually Resolves, and What It Doesn't
The sunset date on both orders lines up with the tail end of monsoon season, not with any claim that the burned terrain has fully stabilized. If storm risk drops enough before then, the Forest Service can rescind either order early. If a late storm keeps the debris-flow risk elevated, an extension is just as plausible. Neither outcome has been announced yet, which is why checking the city of Sedona's closure updates or the Forest Service alerts page before a hike still matters more than trusting a date on a page from a month ago.
The recovery work behind the scenes has already started. Enchantment Resort's managing director, Stan Kantowski, announced a $25,000 donation to the Sedona Red Rock Trail Fund specifically earmarked for repairing the trails affected by the fire, a detail that surfaced alongside reporting from Sedona Red Rock News that total suppression costs for the Pocket Fire reached $64.1 million. The Sedona Red Rock Trail Fund, the nonprofit that partners with the Forest Service's Red Rock Ranger District on trail upkeep, has acknowledged that the fire landing in the same season as heavy monsoon rain created a compounding maintenance load it's still working through. That's a longer repair timeline than a single closure order, even after the legal restrictions lift.
What This Means for the Next Few Weekends
If your plans this month involve Cathedral Rock, Devil's Bridge, Soldier Pass, or Boynton Canyon, nothing about the current closures affects you. If your habit is West Fork on a slow Sunday morning, that one's out until at least the end of the month, and possibly a while longer depending on how the weather behaves between now and then. Either way, the Visit Sedona closure page and the Forest Service alerts stay more current than any single blog post, this one included, so a quick check before you load the car is still worth the thirty seconds.
This is the kind of detail that only shows up when you're paying attention to a place week over week rather than glancing at a headline from July and assuming it still holds. That's how we approach every corner of Sedona we write about, whether the subject is a trailhead or a closing table. If you ever want to talk through what else has changed here, or anywhere else we cover across Texas and Arizona, Piazza Realty Group is easy to reach. Let's connect.
