Phil Kincheloe unfolds his Sedona trail map and spreads it across the trailhead picnic table in front of us. His hand sweeps across the entirety of it, some 200 miles of tiny, squiggly lines.

His dogs, released from his truck in a flurry of flesh and fur, run crazed circles around the trailhead, half-feral creatures who occasionally hop up on the table to wag furiously at him, nails digging into the map. Kincheloe, his sandy, greying hair standing up at odd angles, has the boyish face and crinkly blue eyes that make him appear younger than his 70-some years. Behind him in the distance sit several prominent geographical features of the West Sedona landscape: picturesque red escarpments, rugged cliff sides, and dramatic towers, like shrines, encircle the horizon. Their names forebode the perils of the desert environment: Dry Creek, Devil’s Bridge, Thunder Mountain.

“I lived right here,” he says, pointing to a location next to what is now the Cultural Center trail system.

“I used to go out my door with my dogs and just walk. There were no trails,” Kincheloe says, as he identifies an area now flush with them. “I’d walk, and I’d just kick a rock out of the way, move a downed tree, you know. Next thing you know, there was a trail. That’s how I started.”