Rain Dance for Arizona on Bell Rock Trail

The sky over Sedona looked heavy, the kind of gray that can’t decide if it’s going to give you shade or finally give you rain.

On Bell Rock Trail, the red earth felt wide and open, stretched out like a stage. I stood there with my arms thrown up, half-joking, half-hopeful, doing my best rain dance for Arizona. The rocks held their rust color under the clouds, and the whole desert seemed to pause and listen.

Hiking out here has a way of making you pay attention to small shifts: wind changing direction, a cooler breath of air, the way distant buttes fade when mist drifts through. It’s not the same as a summer storm back home, where rain arrives loud and certain. This was more like a question hanging in the sky.

I don’t know if the dance worked. Maybe it’s enough that it made me stop and look around, to feel how big the landscape is and how quiet you can get inside it. Even when the ground is dry, you can still sense what it’s waiting for.

If you’ve ever walked Bell Rock Trail under a brooding sky, you know the feeling: that the desert isn’t empty at all. It’s just patient.