What it is
The Phoenix Mountains Preserve is the range of schist ridges that runs across north-central Phoenix from the Biltmore to Shaw Butte, with Piestewa Peak as its high point, and Dreamy Draw is the pass through the middle of it. The 51 freeway uses the pass; so does the preserve’s quiet trailhead, the Dreamy Draw Recreation Area at the end of Northern Avenue, a cluster of ramadas and lots just west of the highway. From here the preserve’s trails fan out: Trail 100, the 10.7-mile Charles M. Christiansen Memorial Trail that runs the full length of the range from Mountain View Park to Tatum Boulevard and passes through the draw; the 3.74-mile Freedom Trail (302) that loops around the base of Piestewa Peak; the Quartz Ridge Trail (8A) east toward the 32nd Street trailhead. Hikers, runners, mountain bikers, horses and leashed dogs share them.
The name is a mining joke. A cinnabar mine in the gap gave off mercury fumes, the miners came out light-headed, and the pass has been the Dreamy Draw since. The parks director Charles Christiansen, who fought to buy these mountains for the city in the 1970s before they were subdivided, got the big trail named for him in 1986.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because the Piestewa Summit Trail is a staircase with a crowd on it, and the same mountain, approached from this side, is a real trail network with almost nobody, ten minutes closer to the Camelback resorts than the McDowells and with dogs allowed. For the visitor with a dog, this and the Freedom Trail are the answer the summit cannot give.
The practical version
Twenty minutes from Old Town via Lincoln and Glendale. Gates open at five and close at seven; trails stay open until eleven. Ramadas, restrooms and a lot that rarely fills. Leashed dogs on everything except the summit trail. Free. Allow two hours for the saddle on Trail 100 and back, or three for the Freedom Trail loop.
When to go
October to April, any time of day, is the preserve’s season; Dreamy Draw is east-facing enough that a late-afternoon walk on Trail 100 gets shade early and the view east gets the light. Winter weekend mornings, when the Piestewa lots are full by seven, this lot is a third full. Summer follows the sunrise rules: on the trail at five, off by seven, and no dogs once the temperature passes 100, which the city enforces.
The routes
- Trail 100 east to the saddle. Under the freeway and up about a mile to the crest between Piestewa and the Stoney ridge, where the Valley opens up east to Camelback and the McDowells. The best view-for-effort in the range. Two miles round trip.
- The Freedom Trail (302). The 3.74-mile loop around the base of Piestewa Peak, connecting Dreamy Draw to the summit trailhead; rolling, rocky in places, with the peak overhead the whole way. The dog hike.
- Trail 100 west. Toward the North Mountain section and Shaw Butte, a long rolling ridge-and-wash section that runners and mountain bikers use for distance; turn around when you like.
- Quartz Ridge (8A). East from the draw toward the 32nd Street trailhead, quieter still, with the quartz outcrop that names it.
- The whole Trail 100. 10.7 miles end to end, Mountain View Park to Tatum Boulevard, with a car at each end; a half-day for a hiker, two hours for a bike.
With kids and dogs
The flat first stretch of Trail 100 and the ramadas make this the easiest Phoenix Mountains outing for small children; the climb to the saddle is a fine goal for a seven-year-old. Dogs on leash go everywhere here, and our dogs note ranks it with the Scottsdale trailheads. Bring water for both; there is none on the trail.
The neighborhood
The recreation area is a pocket of desert between the freeway and the Biltmore’s northern streets. Nothing to eat within walking distance; the Biltmore district at 24th and Camelback is ten minutes south for lunch afterward.
The story
Phoenix nearly built houses on these mountains. In the 1960s the ridgelines from the Biltmore to Shaw Butte were being surveyed, and the city’s own parks director, Charles Milo Christiansen, became the inside advocate for buying them instead, working with residents’ groups to push bond money toward the hills through the 1970s. The result was the Phoenix Mountains Preserve, one of the largest municipal mountain parks in the country, and the model Phoenix later used for South Mountain’s expansion and the Sonoran Preserve in the north. Christiansen did not live to see all of it; the long trail that ties the range together was dedicated in his memory in 1986, with a plaque at its western trailhead in Mountain View Park.
The Dreamy Draw’s own history is older and stranger. Cinnabar, the red ore of mercury, was mined in the gap in the territorial years, and the fumes that came off the roasting ore left the miners dazed; the “dreamy” draw was the miners’ name and it stuck. In the 1990s the Squaw Peak Parkway was driven through the pass, with Trail 100 routed under the highway; the freeway was renamed the Piestewa Freeway with the peak in 2003. The rock along the freeway cut here is a phyllite with a slaty cleavage that geologists bring students to see, part of the same ancient schist that makes the McDowells.
The Scottsdale connection
The Phoenix Mountains Preserve is the city of Phoenix’s older cousin to Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve, and the two were made by the same argument: buy the mountains before the builders do. Phoenix did it in the 1970s; Scottsdale in the 1990s, with a much bigger piece of ground. The trail you walk here is what the McDowells’ trails will feel like in thirty years, well-worn and close to town. Scottsdale borrowed the name for its Dreamy Draw Music Festival on the Civic Center lawn each November, a nod to the Valley rather than to the pass itself.
Getting there
Lincoln Drive west from Scottsdale Road through Paradise Valley; past Tatum it becomes Glendale Avenue. Take the 51 north one exit to Northern Avenue and turn right, or continue to 24th Street, north to Northern and east; the recreation area entrance is on Northern just west of the freeway. About twenty minutes from Old Town, twelve from the Camelback resorts. The gate locks at seven; the trail does not, so park outside on Northern for an evening walk.