Flagstaff / Sunset Crater & Walnut Canyon
Kingman to Flagstaff, AZ | Visiting Sunset Crater and Walnut Canyon National Monuments | Camping in Kaibab National Forest | January 2026
Once we were finished around Kingman, it was time to start our drive across Northern Arizona. We were looking forward to taking our time driving I-40, with a combination of visiting places we’d visited together over a decade ago, and hitting some new spots. We knew going into these plans that we wouldn’t be getting the warm, sunny weather that we love in Southern Arizona, but little did we know what the weather had in store for us over the next week!
We drove East to Flagstaff, contemplating a detour to Sedona, but ultimately deciding we didn’t have as much time as we’d like to give the area its proper dues. It had been almost 11 years since our last time in Flagstaff, so we were excited to return and see the area once again with a new perspective that only a long stretch of time away can give. When we arrived, we headed North to start our time here at Sunset Crater National Monument.
In preparation for our return, I went back to reread my posts from the summer of 2014 when we spent a few days exploring the area, and as usual it was a painful experience. I don’t like rereading my writing (if you can call it that — it felt more like I was just captioning my sub-par phone pictures) and if I wasn’t so committed to preserving all our memories together maybe I’d just archive the first 3-4 years of this blog. But I guess it shows growth, so we’ll let it stay for now. Anyway, besides my writing being cringe, I also learned that 2014 Curtis and Jess were unimpressed with Sunset Crater. So today, I was even more determined to return and to enjoy it!
We started at the visitor center, getting our stamps (including the exclusive America 250 stamp!) and walked through the museum, learning about volcanos and craters around Arizona. There was also an exhibit on the Hawaii eruptions in 2018, which was cool to connect since we were in Hawaii at that time. Then after chatting with the ranger, we headed out to hit the trails.
Our one biggest ‘disappointment’ from last time still stands — it would be cooler if you could actually climb up Sunset Crater, I’ll give us that. But we understand why it’s closed to the public and appreciate what they’re trying to preserve. But besides that, we couldn’t deny how cool this place felt, walking around and seeing the lava rock, and admiring the snow capped San Francisco peaks.
Last time, we hiked the Lenox Crater Trail. Today, we hiked the Lava Flow Trail loop, and to the lookout to the West from the parking area. We thoroughly enjoyed the terrain and surrounding views. Someone needed to tell past Curtis and Jess that they wouldn’t always be surrounded by the beauty of Arizona and tell them to appreciate every unique view they had before the Navy dragged them away!
After hiking the trails and having lunch in the van, we decided to find a campsite in the national forest. We had success just outside of National Monument boundaries. We were both wishing that we had enough time to hike either O’Leary or Elden mountains, but we only had a couple hours of daylight left, and we wouldn’t be able to hike the next morning either because Curtis had a meeting scheduled right in the middle of the day. If we had the time, it could have been a good day to hike either of these peaks, because the snow at this point seemed to only be on the San Francisco peaks…but that was about to change.
We were following the forecast closely, tracking the next storm, which was bringing snow to the I-40 corridor, followed by frigid temps. Like I said, we knew when we chose to drive across Northern Arizona in January that there would be a potential for winter weather, but now it had gone from a possibility to a real thing we’d have to deal with, and we were struggling to find a place that wouldn’t be affected by the weather without adding a lot of miles to our drive. And even if we did make the effort to drop below the Rim, Southern Arizona was supposed to be getting rain so we would still be wet.
But for tonight, we were still fine to stay here, it would just be cold…but not as cold as it would be soon, so it was time to start adjusting to the dropping temps. After parking in a dispersed spot, we settled in, then Curtis went for a short hike to a nearby peak.
Curtis: I may not have been able to climb nearby O’Leary, but I made up for it by climbing to the top of another shorter cinder cone. It was an experience; similar to hiking the dunes honestly, but more gravelly. From the top of this cone I had views down into other spatter cones and craters, including Sunset which made for a fun perspective.
Jess: We made it through the chilly evening, using the heater periodically throughout the night, and thankfully nothing froze and our water system worked the next morning. After Curtis’ meeting and getting some work done, we drove back into Flagstaff for a couple errands and our last In-N-Out on this trip. Honestly, we do think Culver’s has better burgers, but we still make a big deal about getting In-N-Out while out West since that’s the only place we can enjoy it. Then, we continued heading East to our main event of today: revisiting Walnut Canyon National Monument. (We decided to skip Wupatki this trip only because we remembered enjoying it so much last time, it felt alright to leave those memories be. Also we were too lazy to drive another 30 minutes North.)
When we arrived at Walnut, we walked through the visitor center, and then set out on the canyon trail. We enjoyed the walk and learning (or relearning) about the history of the area. We followed that walk up with the rim trail, which I don’t think we did last time. Just like our last visit, the San Francisco Peaks seemed to dominate the landscape whenever they were in view, though today we were simply able to enjoy the views knowing we had been to the top, rather than feeling daunted by the challenge ahead of us. Back then, I wrote about how I was nervous because it felt like the only chance I’d ever have to hike to Mt. Humphreys, the highest point in Arizona. Now, I was here with the perspective that only time could give, which was that if it’s that important to us, we’ll make it happen. We’ll always return to places we love.
Once we finished here, we drove another few miles East on I-40 to Winona, where we found a place to camp for the night. It worked for the night, the main drawback being that there was a shooting range nearby that was used constantly into the early evening hours.
