Everyone in Scottsdale calls it Red Mountain, and the federal gazetteer has never heard of it by that name. Its entry is Mount McDowell, about 2,830 feet, on the Granite Reef Dam quadrangle, near where the Verde joins the Salt and a mile and a half north of Granite Reef Dam. The Fountain Hills chamber of commerce described it as sandstone conglomerate that “glows dramatically in the last rays of day,” with a deep western cleft called the Gunsight, and said the mountain is sacred to tribes including the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. The name trap goes one step further. About four miles west, also on Community land, the gazetteer lists Sawik Mountain, made official in 1917, whose name it says “is derived from the Pima Indian form ‘Sah-wik’ meaning ‘Red Mountain.’” So the summit whose official name means Red Mountain isn’t the one people call Red Mountain. Sawik also names the USGS map sheet that covers Taliesin West and much of east Scottsdale. Both peaks are on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, and a 2010 Phoenix New Times item reported that Red Mountain has been closed to hikers, climbers and photographers since the early 1980s. Admire it from Fountain Hills or the Beeline Highway, and leave it alone.
Red Mountain: Why Scottsdale's Sunset Peak Is 'Mount McDowell' on the Map
The jagged red peak that glows at sunset across east Scottsdale is Red Mountain to everyone and Mount McDowell to the federal gazetteer. Four miles west sits Sawik Mountain, whose official name comes from the Pima for 'red mountain.' Both are on Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community land and closed to hiking.
In one line
Red Mountain: The jagged red peak on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community south of Fountain Hills, visible across east Scottsdale and glowing at sunset. Federal maps call it Mount McDowell, and some in Fountain Hills call it FireRock.
The 30-second version
- Locals call it Red Mountain; the federal gazetteer lists it as Mount McDowell, about 2,830 feet, a mile and a half north of Granite Reef Dam.
- Some in Fountain Hills call it FireRock; the chamber of commerce has described the deep western cleft as the Gunsight.
- Sawik Mountain, about four miles west and official since 1917, takes its name from the Pima 'Sah-wik,' meaning 'Red Mountain.'
- The mountain is on Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community land; a 2010 Phoenix New Times item reported it closed to hikers, climbers and photographers since the early 1980s.
Shelf
Status
Still in use
In official or everyday use today.
Who said it first
Descriptive, for its red conglomerate rock; the official name, Mount McDowell, honors Gen. Irvin McDowell, namesake of the Army's 1865 Camp McDowell
Words that go with it
The lexicon entries this one leans on.
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Places · Still in use
The McDowells
The McDowell Mountains, the roughly 25-mile range on Scottsdale's northeast edge between the city and Fountain Hills, topped by East End at 4,069 feet. Most of the Scottsdale side is now the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Locals just say 'the McDowells.'
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Civic · Still in use
SRPMIC (the Community)
The abbreviation for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, the sovereign nation on Scottsdale's eastern border. Locals say 'the Community'; the Community itself says Onk Akimel O'odham and Xalychidom Piipaash for its two peoples.
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Places · Faded
McDowell Pass
The federally named gap a few miles south of Fountain Hills where the Beeline Highway (State Route 87) crosses between Red Mountain and the Fountain Hills side of the McDowells, on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Almost nobody calls it anything.
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Places · Still in use
The Salt River
The 200-mile river that drains eastern Arizona's White Mountains and once watered the Hohokam and Phoenix canals. Below Granite Reef Dam it is a dry bed; above it, the Valley's summer swimming hole. Locals also use the name for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.
Where you'll meet it on this site
The guides that carry the full story.
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Government · Sovereign Neighbors
Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
A sovereign nation on Scottsdale's eastern border since 1879
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Neighborhood guide
Fountain Hills
A whole town built around a sales gimmick, fifteen minutes over the hill — and the gimmick still goes off every hour.
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Salt River / Mesa edge (outside Scottsdale)
Granite Reef Diversion Dam
A low concrete weir across the Salt River, finished by the U.S. Reclamation Service in 1908, that diverts nearly everything the river carries into the Arizona Canal on the north bank and the South Canal on the south. It doesn't hold back a lake. It's the valve. The Arizona Canal water that turned Scottsdale from creosote into farms has started here for more than a century.
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First weekend of November, Saturday and Sunday
Red Mountain Eagle Powwow
On the first weekend of November the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community hosts a two-day intertribal powwow on its ballfields at McDowell and Longmore: grand entries, Grammy-winning Northern Cree as host drum, roughly $35,000 to $40,000 in prize money, a hundred-odd vendors. It is free, ten minutes from Old Town, and it asks a few things of visitors.
Where this comes from
The record behind the entry.
- Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce, 'Landmarks' (archived 2012)
- U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System (Mount McDowell, feature 31660; Sawik Mountain, feature 10974)
- Phoenix New Times, 'Best Hike You'll Never Do: Red Mountain (a.k.a. Mount McDowell),' Best of Phoenix 2010 (as cited by Wikipedia; original link now dead)
Facts checked: October 3, 2026 • Curated by the Scottsdale.tips editors • Plain-English explainer. Usage changes faster than the record; corrections are welcome.
More from the same shelf
Places · 2018
Old Town (versus Downtown)
Officially, all of downtown Scottsdale is now 'Old Town.' To longtime locals Old Town is only the few blocks of 1920s storefronts on Main and Brown, and calling the Waterfront or the bar district 'Old Town' marks you as new.
Places · 1994
The Preserve
The McDowell Sonoran Preserve, more than 30,500 acres of city-owned mountain and desert bought with voter-approved sales taxes. On weekends it is where Scottsdale hikes; at City Hall it is the third rail.
Places · 1963
The Airpark
The 2,600-acre business district around Scottsdale Airport, home to more than 2,500 companies and some 48,000 jobs, the third-largest employment center in Greater Phoenix. 'Working in the Airpark' is the standard North Scottsdale commute, and the name covers the offices, hangars and car dealerships alike.