When Can I Be Outside?

Hour-by-hour windows for hiking and being outdoors in the Sedona heat, on the published NWS scale — in plain words.

[data-tool-body-wait]{display:none}This part of the page needs JavaScript, and this browser isn’t running it. Everything else on the page still reads.

This still hasn’t loaded. It looks stuck rather than slow, so reloading is worth a try now.

Reload the page Other tools for Sedona

About these tools

Town Tools builds free, public tools for Sedona and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Reading it for your plans

Exposed mesa trails vs. the shaded creek

Cathedral Rock, Devil's Bridge, Bell Rock and the Airport Mesa loop are open slickrock with almost no shade — they feel hotter than this page's town number, and there's no water on them. The Oak Creek corridor trails (West Fork, the creekside stretches) run noticeably cooler and shadier. On a hot day, save the mesas for the early window and keep the canyon for midday.

Be at the trailhead early

From June through August, the comfortable window is usually the first hours after sunrise. Aim to be parked and walking by 6:30–7 a.m.; trailhead lots also fill early, so the early start solves two problems at once. Carry more water than you think you need — a gallon per person on a long exposed hike.

Monsoon afternoons

From July the afternoons can turn from clear to thunderstorm fast. An early finish keeps you off exposed high ground (and out of slot canyons and washes) when lightning and flash-flood runoff arrive — check the creek-flood page too on stormy days.

Worth knowing

How hot it really gets

Sedona sits at 4,360 feet, so it's cooler than Phoenix — but July still averages a high near 97°F, and the slickrock radiates heat well past it. On the genuinely extreme days no hour is easy, and this page will say so rather than pretend.

Source: NWS Flagstaff, checked June 15, 2026