Sedona Sinkhole

With all the recent talk of sinkholes swallowing people in Florida, I thought I'd share one of our discoveries during our last Arizona visit. At the end of Soldier's Pass in western Sedona, beneath what appears to be a red rock Sphinx, there is a giant sinkhole sometimes referred to as the Devil's Kitchen.  It has an opening of approximately 150 x 90 feet and is about 70 feet deep. The hole itself has been around for awhile, but the chunk of rock broken off in this photo is called the "piano" since it has a similar shape to a baby grand. Apparently shortly after the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, Sedona residents heard a rumbling and saw a giant cloud of red smoke and dust rising into the air in the horizon and this was the result!  Below is a view of the deep chasm in front of the piano shelf.

You can learn more about Sedona sinkholes and their causes here.