Scottsdale’s water story usually starts at the tap. Ours starts on the Lower Salt River, northeast of Mesa, where the river comes out of a chain of dams and runs green and cold between cliffs and saguaros for several miles before the canals take it. Just below, where the Verde joins it, Granite Reef Dam turns much of that water into the Arizona Canal — the same canal that runs past the Waterfront in Old Town.
It’s the closest real river to Scottsdale, it’s under an hour from Old Town, and in summer it’s where a good part of the Valley goes to float. None of it is in Scottsdale. The river corridor is Tonto National Forest land reached by Bush Highway and Usery Pass Road on the Mesa side, and farther downstream the river passes through the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Plan it as a half-day trip, not an errand.
Tubing: how the season works
The float runs through a commercial outfitter, Salt River Tubing, which rents tubes and runs shuttle buses along the river so you can put in upstream and get picked up downstream. The season generally runs from late spring into September, with weekend-only days at the edges. The exact dates, hours, and prices change year to year and depend partly on water releases from the dams upstream, so check the outfitter’s site before you drive out.
What to know before you get wet:
- Weekends are a party. Summer Saturdays are loud, crowded, and drifting in a haze of sunscreen and domestic beer. Weekday mornings are a quieter river, and the one for kids.
- No glass, ever. On some busy holiday weekends the forest service has also restricted alcohol. Follow what’s posted for the day you go.
- Wear shoes that stay on. The riverbed is rocks, and so are the exits. Flip-flops are a donation to the river.
- Sun protection, then more. You’re on reflective water in full sun for hours. A hat with a strap and a long-sleeve sun shirt beat reapplying sunscreen with wet hands.
- Tie off anything that floats. Loose tubes and coolers drift into the brush, and people go in after them.
- Pack out everything. Volunteers pull an astonishing amount of trash out of this corridor every summer. Don’t add to it.
- Check for water-quality advisories. They’re not common, but they happen.
The wild horses
The Lower Salt has a free-roaming herd of horses — a few hundred of them, by most counts — that graze the river’s eelgrass and wade in the shallows along the banks. They are photogenic, and they are not pets, not props, and not tame.
After a public fight over whether they should be removed, the state passed a law in 2016 protecting the herd, and a volunteer nonprofit, the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, works with the agencies on their care. The rules for you are simple:
- Stay back. The usual guidance is at least fifty feet, and more around foals and stallions. They kick and bite, and the calm-looking ones are the ones that surprise people.
- Never feed them. Human food makes them sick and teaches them to walk up to cars and people, which ends badly for the horse.
- Drive Bush Highway slowly. Horses cross it, especially at dawn and dusk.
- Never get between a mare and her foal, or between a band and the water.
The best viewing is early morning at the recreation sites along the river — Coon Bluff and Phon D. Sutton are the usual suggestions — with a long lens and a thermos. Most mornings you’ll find a band grazing in the shallows. Some mornings you won’t.
Saguaro Lake
Upstream, the Salt pools behind Stewart Mountain Dam to form Saguaro Lake, the closest of the Salt River reservoirs to Scottsdale. It’s a genuine canyon lake: cliffs, saguaros down to the waterline, and a marina with boat rentals, plus a paddlewheel tour boat, the Desert Belle, when it’s running — check the schedule. For hikers, the Butcher Jones Trail along the north shore is a fine cool-season walk with water views most of the way.
Summer weekends on the lake are busy with boats and jet skis. In winter it’s quiet, cool, and one of the best picnic spots within an hour of town.
The pass, the parking, and the heat
- Tonto Pass. Parking at most recreation sites along the Lower Salt and at Saguaro Lake requires a Tonto Pass or another accepted federal pass. Buy it before you go — local retailers and the forest service’s online sales both carry it — and display it.
- The heat hasn’t gone anywhere. A river in July is still July. Cold water on your legs and 110°F on your head is a dehydration recipe; bring more water than beer. The summer sunrise rules apply to the drive home at 2:00 PM, too.
- Monsoon changes the river. Storms upstream can raise flows and bring debris and lightning. If the sky is building over the mountains, get off the water. The monsoon field manual has the rest.
Pairing it
Make a day of the east side: horses at dawn, a float or a lake picnic at midday, and back to town for dinner. In the cooler months, the Superstitions and the Apache Trail are just beyond, and our day trips from Scottsdale note covers them. Back home, the Arizona Canal path follows this same river water straight through the middle of the city, and the Scottsdale water page explains how much of the tap depends on it.
When to go
Tubing season lives in June, July, and August, with weekdays for sanity. Horse watching is best from October through April, early, when the light is low and the bands are down at the water.
The river is the rare piece of the desert that’s green, cold, and moving. Show up early, keep your distance from anything with hooves, and leave it the way you found it.