SEDONA — The roughly 65 campers and camp hosts who spent four days cut off at Cave Springs Campground in Oak Creek Canyon were able to start leaving Wednesday morning after the creek finally dropped.
The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said the low-water crossings into the campground were passable again and that everyone was expected to be out by the end of the day. U.S. Forest Service crews first had to clear logs, stumps and boulders the floodwater left on the road.
The trouble started Sunday, when a weekend of storms swelled Oak Creek and made the crossings too dangerous to drive. The National Weather Service says nearly 4.5 inches of rain fell over parts of the watershed starting Saturday. The creek peaked Tuesday morning at more than 2,500 cubic feet per second, about five times its usual flow.
An Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter dropped two days of food to the campground Tuesday. County officials called that a precaution and said no one was in immediate danger.
Officials say it is common for rain to block the crossings for a short time, but rare for the water to stay high for days. Anyone heading up State Route 89A this week should check Coconino National Forest alerts before going.
Sources: KNAU. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: W. Bulach / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
