What it is
The Phoenix Sonoran Preserve is the city of Phoenix’s version of what Scottsdale did with the McDowells: more than 9,600 acres of Sonoran Desert on the city’s northern edge, bought and set aside as open space rather than subdivided, with 36 miles of trail reached from three trailheads. Apache Wash, at the end of Sonoran Desert Drive north of Desert Ridge, is the trailhead on the Scottsdale side and the one to know. It opened in late 2013, funded in part by the neighborhoods around it, and it is a model of the type: a shade ramada, vault toilets, a lot that rarely fills, a sighting marker that names the mountains on the horizon, and trails heading off in every direction.
The terrain is rolling bajada and wash rather than mountain, which is why the Apache Wash Loop, 5.6 miles of easy singletrack, is as popular with mountain bikers as with hikers. The Apache Vista Trail is the one climb, a half mile to the summit of Apache Hill and a view that takes in the McDowells to the east, the Bradshaws to the north and the whole Valley to the south. Ridgeback, Cliff Walk, Badger Brawl and Esplanade add distance and a little difficulty; the East and West Skip Rimsza Paseos are paved and flat for strollers and road bikes. Leashed dogs go everywhere.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because it is what Brown’s Ranch was before Scottsdale found it. The desert is the same, the trails are built to the same standard, and on a winter Saturday when the Scottsdale Preserve lots are full by seven, Apache Wash has space at nine. For a mountain biker or a visitor with a dog, it is the quietest good trailhead within forty minutes of a Scottsdale resort.
The practical version
Thirty-eight minutes from Old Town, twenty from Pinnacle Peak via Dynamite. Lots open five to seven, trails until eleven. No fee, no water, vault toilets. Two hours for the loop, thirty minutes for Apache Vista, as long as you like on the paseos. Carry a liter per person per hour in any month.
When to go
October to April, at any hour, is the season; the preserve faces every direction, and the loop has no shade at all, so even a winter noon is warm. Weekend mornings bring the mountain bikers, who share the loop politely and ride it counter-clockwise by convention; walk the other way if you want to see them coming. Summer means the sunrise rules without exception: on the trail at five, off by seven, and no dogs once the temperature passes 100, which the city enforces. The paseos, paved and near the lot, are the only summer option after seven.
The routes
- Apache Wash Loop. 5.6 miles, easy, rolling, with the wash on the west side and a low ridge on the east; two hours walking, forty-five minutes riding.
- Apache Vista. A half mile up to the top of Apache Hill and the sighting marker, the best view for the least effort in the preserve; do it as the finish.
- Ridgeback and the Overlook. 1.5 miles of moderate climbing along a ridge with a 0.2-mile spur to an overlook; the hiker’s option when the loop feels flat.
- Cliff Walk. 2.9 miles along the edge above the wash, easy, quieter than the loop.
- The Skip Rimsza Paseos. The paved east (1.9 miles) and west (3.1) paths along Sonoran Desert Drive, named for a former Phoenix mayor, for strollers, road bikes and the hour after a hike.
- Farther west. The Desert Vista trailhead (Dixie Mountain, Union Peak) and Desert Hills (the 6.3-mile Ocotillo and 7-mile Sidewinder trails) are the preserve’s other sections, a longer drive and a longer day.
With kids and dogs
The paseos are stroller trails, Apache Vista is a child’s first summit, and the loop is a reasonable goal for a ten-year-old on a bike. Dogs on leash go everywhere, with cholla along some trail edges to watch; our dogs note ranks the trailheads. There is nothing to eat within fifteen minutes; bring it.
The neighborhood
Open desert, by design. Sonoran Desert Drive runs about eight miles across the preserve between Cave Creek Road and the North Valley Parkway, and the nearest services are at Desert Ridge, ten minutes south on Cave Creek Road or Tatum.
The story
Phoenix had watched its own Phoenix Mountains Preserve succeed in the 1970s and its South Mountain Park become the largest city park in the country, and when the city’s growth turned north in the 1990s it planned a third preserve ahead of the houses rather than behind them. The Sonoran Preserve plan set aside tens of thousands of acres in the far north of the city, to be bought as state trust land came up for sale; the piece that actually got protected, more than 9,600 acres so far, is the open desert north of Desert Ridge and the Carefree Highway. The Desert Vista trailhead came first; Apache Wash followed in late 2013, built with money from the surrounding neighborhoods as well as the city, on a new parkway, Sonoran Desert Drive, that bisects the tract between Cave Creek Road and the North Valley Parkway.
The result is a preserve that opened with its trails already designed for the way people use desert now: a shared-use loop built for bikes as much as boots, short summit spurs for the view, paved paseos for the people who will never leave the pavement, and signage that explains the plants. It is the same philosophy Scottsdale applied at Brown’s Ranch in the same years, and the two trailheads could be swapped without anyone noticing, except that Scottsdale’s is famous and Phoenix’s is not.
The Scottsdale connection
The McDowell Sonoran Preserve is the standard this one is measured against, and Scottsdale’s 30,000 acres include mountains that Phoenix’s 9,600 do not. But the two are part of a single idea that the north Valley’s cities adopted one after another: buy the desert while it is still for sale. For a visitor who has done Brown’s Ranch and wants the same desert with nobody on it, our north Scottsdale hikes note points here as the next trailhead west.
Getting there
From Old Town, the 101 north and then west to Cave Creek Road, north about five miles to Sonoran Desert Drive, west about two miles to the trailhead on the right, about thirty-eight minutes. From North Scottsdale, Dynamite Boulevard west; it becomes Sonoran Desert Drive at Cave Creek Road, and the trailhead is twenty minutes from Pinnacle Peak. The gate closes at seven; park on the road shoulder for an evening walk and expect no light at all once the sun is down.