Every clear Saturday morning, somebody drives east past the point where Pinewood Boulevard's pavement runs out, parks in the lot just past the cattle grate, and climbs the 1.2 miles up to the ridge everyone calls Crystal Point. They stop at the picnic table, dig through one of the old ammo cans that have held trail logs there for more than two decades, sign their name below whoever came through last week, and head back down the way they climbed. Round trip: about 2.4 miles. Box checked.
Ask that same hiker what's another mile and a half past the ridge and most won't know. The logbooks rarely mention it either. But the trail keeps going. Past Crystal Point, it drops through a series of switchbacks for roughly 2.1 more miles down to Odell Lake, a small reservoir sitting quietly below the ridge that most people who've "done" the hike have never actually seen.
The trail has two endings, and one of them gets skipped
The distance you cover depends entirely on where you decide the hike is over.
| Where you stop | Round trip | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Crystal Point summit | about 2.4 miles | Ridge views, the ammo can logbooks, glimpses of Sedona's red rock in the distance |
| Odell Lake | about 6.8 miles total | Everything above, plus the switchbacks through ponderosa pine and alligator juniper down to the water |
AllTrails logs the full route as a 6.8-mile out-and-back, rated 4.6 stars across 884 community reviews, with an average completion time just over three hours. That's the number for people who go all the way down. The 2.4-mile version, the one most Saturday hikers actually walk, isn't really a separate trail. It's the same trail with the second half left off.
Dogs are welcome on leash either way, and the elevation means even summer mornings start cool enough that a light layer earns its place in the pack.
A country club lake that isn't actually private
Odell Lake exists because Pinewood Country Club dammed a stretch of Munds Creek with an earthen berm, and the club still maintains it. On paper that should make it a members-only feature, the kind of water you'd need a golf membership to reach. It doesn't work that way. The lake's southeastern shore sits inside the Coconino National Forest, on public land, which means anyone willing to walk down from the ridge can fish or sit at the water's edge without ever holding a Pinewood membership card. The club keeps the dam up. The forest keeps the shoreline open. Bring a rod, not a scorecard.
What stays put and what rotates through
Munds Park runs on two different clocks, and it helps to know which is which.
Pinewood Bar & Grill, at 65 Pinewood Boulevard, has been serving breakfast and lunch since 1968, back when the Pinewood subdivision was still filling in with second homes for Phoenix families. The golf course at Pinewood Country Club is even older, an 18-hole, par-72 layout designed by Lawrence Hughes that opened in 1958 and is managed today by Troon. Those are fixed points. They were here before this summer's visitors arrived and they'll be here after Labor Day empties the town back out.
Then there's the layer that turns over every year. The Saturday market crowd is the clearest example: vendors drive up from the Valley for a few months, set up, and head back down when the season ends. NiMarco's Pizza and Kota's Coffee House round out the short list of places that feed the town in any real way, and Kota's keeps dog treats at the counter for the leashed hikers coming off the trail. Martino's Restaurant & Lounge built its dining rooms around a Rat Pack theme, complete with a Dean Martin room and a Frank Sinatra room, and Borracho Saloon has been the spot for live music on the nights something's booked. None of that changes the fact that if you want a sense of how long this town has actually been a town, the grill and the golf course are older than most of what gets photographed for the season.
Three Saturdays left on the market's clock
Labor Day falls on September 7 this year, which means the season that started back on Memorial Day weekend has three Saturdays left: August 22, August 29, and September 5. That closes out both the Pinewood Farmers' Market, held behind Munds Park Community Church off Munds Ranch Road, and the Munds Park Farm to Table Market at Agee's BBQ Patio a short distance away, where produce comes up from Verde Valley growers including Two Sisters' Tomatoes in Camp Verde and Heart of Gold Farm in Rim Rock. After the first Saturday in September, both tables fold up until next Memorial Day.
None of that means Munds Park goes quiet. Pinewood Players, the community theater group, has been building toward its 2026 season since spring, and the country club's daily rhythm continues on a shorter public schedule once the market crowd thins out. The visible layer contracts. The town underneath it doesn't.
The hike is a decent metaphor for the town
Most people who spend a Saturday in Munds Park do the version everyone does: market table, coffee, a walk to the ridge and back, dinner somewhere with a patio. There's nothing wrong with that version. But the fuller one, the one that goes all the way to the lake, the one that knows the grill predates the golf course sign out front, the one that shows up in late August instead of waiting for a July weekend that's already three Saturdays gone, tends to leave with a better sense of the place. Same trail. Same town. Different amount of it actually seen.
If you're spending time in Munds Park this season, whether you're up for the weekend or you've been coming for years, Karra Polder is always glad to talk through what's changing in this corner of Northern Arizona and what's staying exactly the same. Let's Connect.
