Classic Moonlight Hike

Are you ready to experience Sedona after dark in a way that goes far beyond a traditional sunset hike? Our Classic Moonlight Hike builds upon the experience of the by giving you another hour to explore, travel farther, and venture deeper into the quietest corners of Red Rock Country. With additional time after sunset, your private guide can create a more immersive nighttime adventure that may include multiple trails, a scenic loop, a summit experience, a vortex visit, or an excursion into one of Sedona’s more secluded wilderness areas. The darkness is only the beginning.

Go Deeper Into the Night

As the evening progresses, the desert becomes increasingly quiet while many of its nocturnal inhabitants become more active. The extra time allows your group to remain in the landscape longer, creating greater opportunities to encounter wildlife and experience the profound solitude that arrives after most visitors have returned to town.

Your guide can create up to 100 different adventures within this three-hour format, allowing the experience to be customized around your group’s abilities, interests, preferred pace, and appetite for adventure.

Rather than simply extending one trail, the additional time can be used to visit multiple locations or combine two different hikes into a single evening. The experience can incorporate one to three trails and can be designed as a scenic loop, summit hike, vortex experience, sunset start, or wilderness adventure. This epic level of flexibility is what separates the Classic Moonlight Hike from a conventional nighttime walking tour.

Watch the Desert Come Alive

The later it gets, the more the desert begins to reveal itself. Our guides carry specialized nighttime equipment designed to help you discover wildlife that would be difficult or impossible to observe during a conventional daytime hike. A high-powered thermal and night-vision monocular can help locate animals in the darkness, while an ultrasonic bat detector allows you to hear the echolocation of bats moving through the night. Black lights provide another fascinating way to search for nocturnal creatures such as scorpions, while high-powered headlamps provide the illumination necessary to navigate the trail after dark.

Wildlife sightings can never be guaranteed, but spending more time in the field later into the evening creates more opportunities to encounter the species that call Sedona’s desert home.

A Different Kind of Solitude

There is a remarkable difference between watching the sunset and continuing into the night. Once darkness settles across Red Rock Country, the trails become quieter, the sandstone formations transform into silhouettes, and the familiar landscape begins to feel almost otherworldly. This is where the experience becomes less about checking another hike off your itinerary and more about becoming immersed in the desert.

Your guide can seek out quieter areas away from Sedona’s busiest trails, allowing you to experience the stillness of the landscape without the crowds, traffic, noise pollution, and distractions that characterize many popular daytime locations. For visitors who want to experience Sedona beyond its most heavily traveled paths, the evening provides an entirely different opportunity for exploration.

More Than One Hike. One Complete Adventure.

The additional hour gives your guide room to be creative. You might begin with a spectacular sunset viewpoint before continuing onto a second trail as darkness settles in. You could connect two shorter hikes, complete a nighttime loop, explore a vortex area after the crowds have disappeared, or venture farther into the wilderness in search of wildlife.

For more adventurous groups, the outing can become a nighttime summit experience.

For photographers, it creates opportunities to capture the changing landscape during sunset, twilight, and darkness. For families and first-time night hikers, it offers a controlled way to step outside your comfort zone while remaining with an experienced guide. And for repeat visitors to Sedona, it provides an opportunity to experience familiar Red Rock Country from an entirely different perspective.

Don't Forget to Look Up

On clear nights, the longer you remain outside, the more impressive Sedona's famous Dark Sky can become. As artificial light fades and darkness settles over the surrounding wilderness, the stars begin to dominate the horizon. You may see the Milky Way, shooting stars, planets, and constellations stretching across the sky.

Our guides also carry high-powered laser pointers that can be used to point out wildlife and help identify prominent constellations overhead. The night sky, however, is part of a much larger experience. Cloud cover does not eliminate the adventure. Wildlife, solitude, darkness, sunset, geology, and the changing atmosphere of the desert remain central to the outing regardless of whether the stars are visible. This is a nighttime hiking adventure—not an astronomy tour.

Equipped for the Adventure

You don't need to arrive with specialized nighttime equipment. Your guide provides the essential gear for navigating and exploring after dark, including high-powered headlamps, thermal and night-vision equipment, an ultrasonic bat detector, and black lights for searching for nocturnal wildlife. Transportation from your Sedona-area accommodations to the trailhead and back is also provided, allowing you to focus on the experience rather than the logistics.

Step Beyond the Ordinary

The Two Hour: Dark Sky Hike introduces you to Sedona after sunset. The Three Hour: Classic Moonlight Hike takes that experience farther. With another hour, your group has more freedom to travel between locations, explore multiple trails, venture deeper into the wilderness, remain outside later into the evening, and experience the desert when nocturnal wildlife is becoming increasingly active.

You can watch Sedona transition from sunset to darkness, search for creatures with thermal and night-vision equipment, listen for bats overhead, explore quiet trails without the daytime crowds, and look up at a sky filled with stars. More time creates more possibilities.

When the rest of Sedona has gone quiet, you’ll still be out there — walking beneath the moon, exploring the red rocks, and discovering a side of Sedona that most visitors never experience.

Outings Include

• Private Hiking Guide
• Red Rock Pass
• Sedona Resort/Airbnb/VRBO Transportation (Sedona, Village of Oak Creek, Oak Creek Canyon)
• Healthy Packaged Trail Snacks
• Bottled Water
• Ultima Electrolytes
• Osprey Daylite Hiking Backpack
• Trekking Poles (By Request)
• 500 Lumen Black Diamond Headlamp
• Thermal & Night Vision Scope for Viewing Animals 600 Yards Away!!
• Ultrasonic Bat Detector to Hear Bat Echolocation 
• Black Lights for Photographing Scorpions
• Gloves, Beanies, Neck Gaiters (During Winter Months)  
• UPF 50 Sun Hoodies  
• Disposable Rain Ponchos  
• Micro Spikes for Snow (If Needed)  
• Osprey Poco Plus Kids Carrying Pack (By Request)  
• Kids Car Seats & Booster Seats (By Request)
• Full List of Supplies Included

Sedona Moonlight Hike Start Times

• January: 5PM 
• February: 5:30PM
• March: 6PM
• April: 6:30PM
• May: 7PM
• June: 7PM
• July: 7PM
• August: 6:30PM
• September: 6PM
• October: 5:30PM
• November: 5PM
• December: 4:30PM

Logistics

• Duration: 3 Hours of Hiking & 1 Hour of Logistics (4 Hours Total)
• Distance: 3 - 5 Miles
• Elevation: 100 - 750ft
• Capacity: 1 - 14 Hikers
• Map of Hike: A) Three Hour: Classic Moonlight Hike (Easy), B) Three Hour: Classic Moonlight Hike (Moderate), C) Three Hour: Classic Moonlight Hike (Upper Moderate)
• Types of Hikes Available (Custom Hike): Summit Hike / Scenic Loop Hike / Vortex Site / Sunset Start / Wilderness Hike
• Sites Visited: 1 - 3 Trails or 2 Hikes
• Start Time: Custom to About One Hour Prior to Sunset (See Above)
• Upcoming Availabilities: Classic Moonlight Hike Calendar
• Cost: $235 + Tax/Hiker (Private Groups) & $425 + Tax/Hiker (Private Solo Hiker)

*PRIVATE ONLY TOURS: TWO PERSON MINIMUM FOR PRIVATE GROUPS OR PLEASE REFER TO SOLO HIKER PRICING

**WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND CONSIDERING PEEK PROTECT COVERAGE AND REVIEWING OUR CANCELLATION POLICY BEFORE BOOKING YOUR RESERVATION

***WE REQUIRE ALL HIKERS/ATTENDEES TO HAVE MEDICAL INSURANCE TO ATTEND ANY OF OUR OUTINGS OFFERED