No new snow fell on the South Rim overnight, although it was certainly cold enough to have done so – maybe some fell but the winds kept it from sticking. In any case, we awoke early and started packing up – between our camping duffel, day packs, and three small suitcases, we had a lot of gear to transport to the car. The small parking lot behind the Kachina had been perpetually full during our entire stay, so Chris temporarily commandeered a nearby spot reserved for hotel staff so we could load the Pathfinder in a couple of short trips. We said goodbye to Grand Canyon Village somewhere around 9am and headed back south toward Williams and I-40, the entire way under a very low cloud ceiling. About 20 minutes from Williams, it started to snow and did so more heavily with every mile – none of it stuck to the roadway, but the countryside got a good dusting, the northerly winds blowing the snowfall almost horizontally directly at us. We made it to I-40 and turned eastward up to Flagstaff where we found a Starbucks and got our bearings. Sedona lies roughly halfway between the Grand Canyon and Phoenix, so we had from the beginning thought of the area as a logical place to eat lunch and get one if not two hikes in before resuming the drive to Scottsdale. And so we drove southward down Hwy 89A through beautiful canyons, dropping below the snowline and passing through intermittent showers into Sedona. We had decided on the way that we’d do one hike and see how we felt before committing to another – if we did just one today, we figured the most ideal would be a visit to Devil’s Bridge, a natural arch north of town accessible via a network of good trails. The bridge lies just a mile east of its official trailhead, but that point requires a 2-mile drive up a rough fire road – an alternative starting point is the Mescal TH, located along a paved road another mile west. We found this latter location without any trouble and headed out east – we’d cross a wide, shallow valley, gradually gaining elevation up to the 4WD road, then ascend more deliberately up toward a saddle before turning sharply and steeply south up the hill to the arch. We were surprised to find a fair amount of water in Dry Creek just east of the TH, and the easy walk across the valley was through a pygmy forest of juniper, manzanita, and pinyon pine, nothing over maybe 15′ tall. The trail wound its way eastward, randomly following subtle terrain contours up and over a couple of rises to the road – from here, we followed what looked to be an old jeep road, which would have indeed made for a rough ride back in the day as it climbed higher over a more rocky series of shelves and upward to the base of a cliff band. The wide trail/road gave way to a narrow singletrack that stair-stepped steeply southward up the cliffs, emerging onto a ledge system atop which we traversed eastward a short distance to Devil’s Bridge. This hike is one of the more popular ones in the area, and, while we had encountered a few hikers both coming and going so far, there was a small crowd gathered here at the bridge, sort of a bottleneck as different groups made their way out onto the arch in turn for a photo. We had just missed the marriage proposal and acceptance of a young millennial couple, so the crowd was all abuzz with that news as we walked up – one of the group offered to take our photo as we made the easy roundabout scramble out onto the bridge. Although some 50′ in the air, it wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable as the span is wider than it looks from afar. We offered to take photos for some of the others, but everyone was a little disorganized, and we left them to sort out their different groupings. It had looked for the last half hour like some heavy rain squalls were moving in from the west, and sure enough, it wasn’t long before the rain started to fall – we had left our ponchos in the car, which was just as well since the rain passed quickly through and it was warm enough that the plastic sheets would have been truly uncomfortable. We made good time getting back to the TH, not stopping for anything save a couple of photos, and the sun had come out for good by the time we returned. It was about 2pm by this time, and we decided to beat the rush hour traffic in Phoenix by leaving straight away instead of doing a second hike. Still, it was a shame to hit the road so soon – although we saw enough of the Grand Canyon to satisfy any desire we have for an immediate second visit, Sedona remains high on our list of places in which to spend a lot more time.