Slide Rock State Park
— — the creek the children remember.
Not only on a wall.
“Oak Creek runs over a slab of red sandstone polished smooth by water and bare feet. The state took the old Pendley apple farm in the 1980s and left most of it standing: the orchard, the packing shed, the slide itself. Children come back as parents. The water stays cold even when the canyon above is in the nineties. The apple trees still bear in the autumn.
Slide Rock State Park, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Slide Rock State Park sits in Oak Creek Canyon at about 4,930 feet, seven miles north of Sedona along State Route 89A. The forty-three-acre park preserves the historic Pendley Homestead, settled in 1907 by Frank Pendley, who built the irrigation flume that still feeds the apple orchard above the swimming area. Arizona State Parks acquired the property in 1985 and opened it to the public two years later. Oak Creek runs the entire length of the park, cut into the same Schnebly Hill Sandstone that frames the cliffs above Sedona.
Oak Creek slides over a quarter-mile of polished red sandstone in a series of natural chutes and pools. The main slide drops about eight feet across slick rock and ends in a deep pool. Water temperature stays in the fifties and low sixties through most of the summer, fed by snowmelt and springs higher in the canyon. The creek has been listed for elevated E. coli readings after summer storms; the park posts current water-quality status at the entrance and on the Arizona State Parks website.
The park is open daily, with a per-vehicle entrance fee that scales by season: highest in summer, lowest from November through February. The parking lot regularly fills before noon on summer weekends; arrival before nine is the practical rule. Water shoes or sturdy sandals are essential; the polished sandstone is gentle on bare feet only inside the slide itself. The Pendley orchard sells apples and cider during the autumn pick season, usually mid-September through October, when the canyon also turns gold.