Honanki Ruins

Very nice place to visit!

The ruins and pictographs were great. These are much more spread out than the Palatki ruins. At this location you hike up on your own. There are no volunteers at the ruins to give you a history or tour. I would recommend seeing the Palatki ruins first for the information. Beware, though the volunteer at Palatki ruins said you could easily take a car up to the location, I would recommend only a high clearance vehicle. We did it in a sedan but it was pretty rough and bumpy. Take water and a hat.

The Honanki Ruins and heritage site is a nearly 1,000 year old cliff dwelling that was once inhabited by the ancestors of the Hopi tribe. The drive to the ruins is hard on your car. The roads are not regularly maintained by the county and there are a few really rough spots. We made it in a Toyota Corolla, but my girlfriend was grinding her teeth for the entire 9 miles drive. The scenery along Route 525 is amazing. It’s totally worth the wear and tear on your car.
The ruins consist of a dozen or so small clay and stone dwellings that were built directly into the mountain side under an overhang. Each dwelling is about the size of a New York apartment, in other words, pretty small. We found the ruins by mistake while were driving around on the backroads. It was one of the best things we saw in Sedona. There were a ton of tour groups ferrying people to the ruins in those pink Jeeps. The hike to ruins from the parking lot is only a quarter mile, so pretty much anyone can do it. You need to have a Red Rock pass to park.
Directions:
From 89a in Sedona, Turn onto Forest Road 525. Follow Forest Road 525 for 9.5 miles. From here, cross over the cattleguard into the parking area. There are several brown signs for the Honaki Ruin along Route 525, so you’ll know that you are headed in the right direction.
I have a bunch more Sedona area hikes on my blog at

Make sure you get a parking pass. If you go to a «Visitor’s Center» that is not affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce, they may give you the wrong information –and tell you that you don’t need a pass for Honanki– But YES, you DO. They don’t sell them. You can get a $ 5 pass for the car at the Chamber of Commerce.
Also, you do NOT need to call in advance to get a reservation to walk through the Honanki ruins. Most literature will tell you to call ahead because they only «take groups of 10 people at a time, every twenty minutes». This is NOT for Honanki, even though you may have a brochure that tells you this under the «Honanki» section. The phone number they list is for all of the local ruins, and if you call they are scheduling you for the Palatki Heritage site, so make sure you clarify this when/​if you call. You are free to browse Honanki all by yourself.
The hike there is pretty quick and you cannot touch anything, but it is really cool! Totally worth going. We suggest you call ahead to ask about the road conditions before you go. Our Buick made the trip just fine, but it is slow going. The road is hard packed dirt and lots of rocks. A smaller car might have trouble with shocks. A jeep is perfect. The dirt/​rock road has some dips and hairpin turns. It is eleven miles from 89A, if you are taking FR 525, west of Sedona. If the weather is good and dry and you have a sturdy car, don’t let the road prevent you from going! Try it!
Our visit was on December 28, 2013 and the day was chilly and sunny. There was zero mud. When we got home there was dust on the car, but no mud. So – it depends on the day and the time of the year.

This place was great. I felt like an explorer looking for treasure. My kids loved it too.

I came here last year on a Pink Jeep Tour with my family. After an off-​roading adventure across the rocky desert and down nearly vertical hills, the ruins were a cool finale.
It was remarkable how relatively well preserved everything was. It’s impossible not to let your mind travel back in time and imagine what life would have been like in this beautiful cliff dwelling. You can still see the marks where the smoke from daily cooking hit the overhanging wall and there are pictographs everywhere. Very cool. The hike in is very easy and we saw tons of wildlife hanging out near the beaten path. You can also see the Polatki ruins nearby. We did come across a lot of bees, so if you’re allergic, be sure to come prepared.

We had the added bonus of coming in winter. While the road is indeed bumpier and muddier, it’s far more worth the drive. Though it’s possible a regular car could make the trek, I wouldn’t do it unless I were in a jeep, truck, or SUV.
I tell you the drive to the ruins was an adventure all its own with the vehicle sliding this way and that in the mud, driving through frozen rivers, and worrying about encountering oncoming traffic on a road only wide enough for our SUV while going around hairpin turns. Use extreme caution when considering this drive. I have included a few photos displaying the various conditions of the dirt road in winter.
But getting to why it was far more worth it during this snowy time.
A small waterfall, above the ruins, rains down a light mist which hits the trees below. As you hike through the snow, you suddenly encounter this gorgeous winter wonderland of icicles (see photos:
).
You can go right up to the ruins and look at the pictographs of people and animals left all over the rock walls. It’s very fascinating.
When you first get to the parking lot, you encounter a small shed-​like structure. Inside is a ranger who briefs you about the ruins: how old they are and how you shouldn’t touch them. The ranger we met was a sweet older lady with an Australian shepherd for company.
The hike to the ruins isn’t very long, but it sure is pretty. If you can make the drive, I’d thoroughly recommend coming.
If you aren’t into exploring such things with many people and tourists around, the added bonus in coming during the winter is having the trail and the ruins all to yourself for the most part. It wasn’t until we were leaving that a Pink Jeep from Sedona pulled up.

You have to venture further from Polatki on an even bumpier and muddier road to visit Honaki. You can walk right up to these ruins, which has encouraged vandals to create their own «rock art». That is unfortunate. Still, I appreciated really getting up close and seeing the rooms and the fire marks and imagining the people who lived there. Some interpretive signs would have been nice because there was no ranger there. The trail to the ruins was incredibly muddy, but short. A nice little side trip in Sedona.

The Honanki ruins, off of Route 89A (past mile marker 365) on Forest Road 525 in West Sedona, is just down the bumpy dirt road from the Polatki ruins nearby. The Sinagua people resided here from AD 1130 – 1280 and they left behind some wonderful pictographs in addition to the primitive structures that have stood at the base of a cliff wall.
So many pictographs — rock drawings for those unfamiliar — in the southwest have been vandalized over the years by trigger-​happy crowds and teenagers who obviously needed a better after-​school program. Although you’ll see remnants of some old school graffiti, many of this site’s pictographs appear as if they had been drawn not too long ago. The colors are still vibrant and images bold.
In spite of the dirt road to this site not being too friendly, it hasn’t scared off visitors to this place. When you’ve had your fill of buying new age crystals and eating ice cream on Sedona’s main street, take your newly energized Chakras out for a spin and check out Honanki.