What it is
Butcher Jones is the Forest Service’s day-use site on the north shore of Saguaro Lake, two miles down a paved forest road off Bush Highway and about 50 minutes from Old Town. It is the lake’s beach. The shore here slopes gradually into the water, a buoy line keeps the motorboats out of the swimming area, and a stand of mesquites shades the picnic tables above the sand. There are vault toilets, no drinking water, and a parking lot that holds fewer cars than want to be in it on a July Saturday.
It is also a trailhead. The Butcher Jones Trail leaves the east end of the beach and follows the north shoreline for about two and a half miles, up and over the saguaro slopes and down into a series of coves, to where the lake narrows toward its canyon; five miles out and back, mostly level, entirely exposed, with the Goldfield cliffs across the water and, in the cool months, desert bighorn on them. For a swim and a walk and a sandwich under a tree, on a national forest with a canyon lake in front of you, it costs the price of a Tonto Pass.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because Scottsdale has no natural water to swim in, and the alternative, a resort pool, is what you are trying to get away from for a morning. Saguaro Lake is the closest real lake to the city, the marina and the Desert Belle do the boat half of the day, and Butcher Jones does the half you can do for eight dollars: a swim in cold green water with cliffs around it, and a shoreline trail that our best hikes note would put in its top ten if it were inside the city.
The practical version
Loop 202 to Power Road, north onto Bush Highway for about 16 miles, past the marina turnoff, right on Forest Road 166 for two miles. Tonto Pass bought in advance. Water, shade, sunscreen, no glass. Arrive before nine in summer or the lot will be closed. The lake guide has the marina and the boat five minutes back.
When to go
October through April for the trail, which is a different hike at 70 degrees than at 100, and for the bighorn, which come down the cliffs across the lake in the cool months. May is the first month the water is comfortable and the last the trail is. Summer is beach season and the site is at capacity by mid-morning every weekend; the move is a weekday, or a Saturday arrival by eight, swim until eleven, and leave as the gate closes behind you. Our summer sunrise hiking rules apply to the trail in full. After a monsoon storm the lake turns brown for a day and the washes along the trail run; give it 24 hours.
What to do
- Swim. Inside the buoys, from the sand, in water that is cold in May and cool in August. No lifeguard; the lake drops off a few yards out.
- Walk the trail. Out to the first cove for a mile, or the whole five miles out and back. The coves along the way have small beaches below the trail that are the private swim.
- Picnic under the mesquites. The tables are the shade; bring the cooler and leave the glass at home.
- Paddle. Kayaks and paddleboards launch from the beach; the coves along the trail are the destination, and the marina is a long paddle west.
- Watch. Bighorn on the north cliffs, bald eagles over the lake in winter, herons on the shore; our desert wildlife field guide has them.
With kids
The best lake beach for small children in the Valley: gradual sand, a buoy line, shade a few steps away, and toilets. It is also the least forgiving in the particulars: no water tap, no snack bar, no lifeguard, and a lot that closes. Pack as if for a desert hike and treat the lake as a pool without a shallow end. Our Scottsdale with kids note pairs the beach with the Desert Belle.
Nearby
Saguaro Lake Ranch for the horses and the cookout, the marina for lunch on the water, and the wild-horse stretch of the river at Coon Bluff on the drive home at dusk.
The story
Saguaro Lake was made in 1930 when Stewart Mountain Dam closed, and the Forest Service, which owns the shoreline, laid out its recreation sites in the decades after as Phoenix drove out to the new lake on Sundays. The marina went at the dam end, where the highway reached the water. The north shore, reached by a forest road over the ridge, was left to a cove with a natural sand beach, and that cove was named, as a lot of Arizona is, for a man nobody now remembers much about: Butcher Jones, a name that stuck to the cove, the beach and the trail. The Forest Service built the picnic units under the mesquites, roped off the swimming area, put in the toilets and the fee machine, and has otherwise left it alone.
The rules grew with the crowds. The glass ban covers the whole Lower Salt River and Saguaro Lake recreation area and exists because of what the beach looked like before it. The no-trailer rule keeps the lot for cars. The OHV staging moved half a mile up the highway to Pobrecito. The Tonto Pass arrived as a way to pay for the toilets and the trash, and the on-site machine charges more than the gas station to encourage people to plan. The lot still fills, and the site still closes when it does, which is the only honest way to run a small beach on a popular lake.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale built itself on the idea of the desert as a place with water in it: canals, resort pools, the Waterfront. The actual water is here, forty miles upstream of the Waterfront, in the lake that feeds the canal. The Butcher Jones Trail is on the same Sonoran slope as the McDowell Sonoran Preserve’s trails and goes through the same saguaros, with the one thing the Preserve cannot offer at the bottom of every cove. Our Salt River note has long listed the trail as the hiker’s reason for the lake.
Getting there
From Old Town, the Loop 101 south to the Loop 202 east, exit Power Road and turn north; Power Road becomes Bush Highway at the forest boundary and climbs along the river about 16 miles, past the tubing headquarters, the horse sites and the Saguaro Lake marina turnoff. Forest Road 166 to Butcher Jones is signed on the right about two miles past the marina turn, paved for its two miles to the lot. From North Scottsdale, Shea east to the Beeline Highway (SR 87), south about four miles, right on Bush Highway for about two miles, then left on FR 166; it is a little quicker and passes nothing but desert. Fifty minutes either way with no traffic; buy the Tonto Pass before you reach the forest.