Enchanting Sedona resort serves up respite

10-20-2002

Knowing that after the rigors of hiking into the Grand Canyon we could both do with a bit of R&R, I had made arrangements to spend the final three days of our Arizona anniversary trip at a spa. After 17 years of being together, I still have little sense of what makes my wife happy, but some calls are obvious.

I had selected a resort called Enchantment, which in those post-9/11 days was offering a discount of more than 50 percent on its regular room rates. We paid about $140 for accommodations that normally ran $295 a night in that season. Of course, everything else would be extra.

Enchantment is situated several miles northwest of Sedona. Draped across the mouth of Boynton Canyon, it's flanked by snaggle-toothed red rock pinnacles.

Occupying a parcel that has been private property since the early 1900s, its 70 acres abut Coconino National Forest, creating a sense of being a vastly larger property, albeit one surrounded by a fence and patrolled by security.

The dry, stony, shrub-strewn desertscape was a ranch before being developed as a palatial private residence in the 1960s. Tennis pro John Gardner acquired the property in the mid-'70s and recast it as Enchantment, an upscale camp for people who were serious about learning the game.

A Sedona investment group purchased Enchantment in 1996 and has steadily developed it as a year-round desert resort.

		If you go ... Enchantment Resort: 1-800-826-4180 or www.enchantment resort.com. Special offer available through Dec. 25; stay three nights and get the fourth night for free. Mii amo spa: 1-888-749-2137 or www.miiamo.com.

Now a member of Small Leading Hotels of the World, Enchantment still has plenty of tennis courts and several outdoor pools, along with miles of fabulous red-rock hiking.

Its architecture is tastefully conceived, with low ocher adobe buildings situated discreetly around the compound. In all, the resort has some 200 one- or two-bedroom guest suites, all situated in small four-unit casitas. In addition, there's a conference center, as well as a variety of homes that can be rented by the week.

In January 2001, a destination spa was opened across Enchantment's main lane. Called Mii amo, a Yuman Indian term meaning "to continue one's path moving forward," the spa complex includes another 16 casitas, where guests can stay and have treatment plans tailored to their particular needs.

Enchantment's public spaces and club house are indeed enchanting, especially the Yavapai Restaurant, a magnificent setting with a high curving wall of glass overlooking a sweeping silhouette of Boynton Canyon's superb red rock sentinels.

For once, my timing was perfect.

We had reached Enchantment about 4:30 that Friday afternoon. A smiling attendant in a golf cart delivered us to our casita, a spacious room consisting of a sleeping and entertainment area with a gas log fireplace, a huge terra-cotta-tiled bathroom, and a balcony with a great desert view and not another building in sight. Nothing wrong with that.

I had made dinner reservations at the Yavapai for 7 p.m. Just as we were being seated, the full moon was rising outside the dining room's Cinerama-wide windows, perfectly centered in a notch between two pinnacles, a giant, glowing opal.

As it happened, this was the second full moon of November, a blue moon. How often does that happen? It was a highly luminous anniversary moment. Dinner was delicious from start to finish, but in a setting that magnificent, somehow even the best food seems secondary.

After a leisurely breakfast the following morning, we decided to take a short stroll to get the kinks out. We chose the route into Boynton Canyon, a 2.5-mile ramble up between two ever-narrowing crests of red rock. The last half of the trail was entirely in deep shade, a stark, chilly contrast to the 90-degree sun. In fact, we were told later that the walls of the upper canyon are so steep and close together that the valley floor gets only a half-hour of direct sun a day, which makes for an interesting micro-environment in the desertscape.

At the canyon's head, we clambered up to a flat rock precipice with a great view of the valley and picnicked on the box lunch packed for us by the gracious Enchantment staff. After enjoying the vista for half an hour, we headed back down for our spa treatments -- quite a contrast to Phantom Ranch.

We'd each scheduled massages for 5:30 p.m. and were anxious to sample some of Mii amo's other facilities.

The newly opened spa's overall theme, what I'd call New Age holistic, is in tune with both the vibrations of the canyon and the ways of its native people. Dozens of different treatments, fitness classes and workshops are offered, all designed to pamper and relax guests and presumably to get them in harmony with their inner "guest-alt."

Unlike my wife, I am no connoisseur of spas, but I'd have to say that Mii amo covered all the self-awareness bases very nicely.

Following no particular program, I sampled the sauna, the plunge pool and a hot shower. And that was before a one-hour deep-tissue massage to work out the embedded knots that had formed in the canyon, not to mention my 53 years of life.

After my massage and while Sari was having what she subsequently described as the "pedicure of her life," I spent time in the Crystal Grotto, a large circular, kiva-like room with a crystal mandala and colored crystals denoting the cardinal directions. It was certainly a peaceful place.

In fact, at dinner in Tii Gavo, the spa's intimate cafe, I was so relaxed I could barely sit upright. I was as al dente as the pasta and scallops upon which I dined.

It was a good thing the restaurant served coffee, which I'm told is something of a rarity at spas. Otherwise, they would have had to take us back to our room in a wheelbarrow.

We both agreed Enchantment had lived up to its name and proved a perfect place for our post-Canyon recovery.

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