What is the Adero Canyon Trailhead?
The McDowell Mountains have three owners. Scottsdale holds most of the west side, Maricopa County holds the big park to the northeast, and the Town of Fountain Hills holds a small, steep piece of the southeast slope. The Adero Canyon Trailhead is the town’s front door to it.
It sits at 14800 N. Eagle Ridge Dr., at the top of a paved road that climbs from Palisades Boulevard through the Adero Canyon neighborhoods. The town’s trail map puts it at about 2,460 feet. It opened in November 2018 with a 50-car lot, a shaded ramada, restrooms and a water filling station. It’s free and open dawn to dusk every day.
From here a short web of trails spreads across the town’s 824-acre McDowell Mountain Preserve: the Promenade, Overlook and Ridgeline trails for views over town, the steep Western Loop, the Sonoran Trail north toward the county park, and the Andrews-Kinsey Trail, which crosses into Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve and meets the Sunrise Trail. That last connection makes this the quieter way up Sunrise Peak, with a bigger lot and better facilities than the Scottsdale side.
For the full trail list and the preserve’s history, see our page on the Fountain Hills McDowell Mountain Preserve.
How to use the trailhead
Pick a loop by how steep you want it. The town rates its trails, and almost none are easy. The Promenade Trail (about 0.95 miles, rated moderate) is the gentlest start. The Ridgeline Trail (about 1.3 miles, moderately difficult) gets you onto the ridge above town. The Western Loop is about 1.28 miles with 573 feet of elevation change, and the town rates it extremely difficult. The Sonoran Trail (about 1.8 miles, difficult) heads north and continues 0.8 miles into the county park. The town’s map measures mileage between numbered emergency markers on the sign posts. Note the nearest one as you go; it’s how you tell a 911 dispatcher where you are.
Use it as the back way to Sunrise Peak. From the lot, take the Promenade Trail a short way, then follow signs to the Andrews-Kinsey Trail. The town lists it at about half a mile in Fountain Hills, then another 2 miles in Scottsdale’s preserve, rated moderately difficult, ending at the Sunrise Trail below the summit. Hiking sites put the whole round trip to the peak at around 6 miles with roughly 600 feet of gain. The connector near the start is short and steep. With two cars you can do a one-way traverse to the Sunrise Trailhead on 145th Way in Scottsdale.
Know the rules. Dogs must be on a physical leash, and the town asks owners to carry waste out to a trash can rather than leave bags by the trail. Horses aren’t allowed. Bikes are, but they yield to everyone. No smoking, open flame, alcohol or glass. Don’t use the trails when they’re wet or muddy.
Go early in warm months. The slopes face east and south and have no shade. From May through September, start at first light and be off the trail by mid-morning; our summer sunrise hiking rules apply. The trailhead closes at dusk.
Make a morning of it. ADERO Scottsdale sits on the ridge just above the trailhead, and Fountain Park and the fountain are a short drive downhill. Our Fountain Hills guide covers the rest of town.
Twenty years to build a parking lot
The trailhead is the end product of a long town project. According to the town’s history of the preserve, the effort started in April 1995, when residents and council members formed an 11-member task force to rank the mountain land worth saving. A preservation commission followed in 1996. In November 1997, 64% of voters approved $6 million in bonds for land purchases.
The money didn’t settle things. A 1998 plan to buy 300 acres from developer MCO Properties in exchange for a rezoning drew resident opposition and was dropped after a referendum threat. In 1999 the council designated 386 acres, gained through a settlement and a land trade, as the Fountain Hills McDowell Mountain Preserve. In 2000 it raised the sales tax slightly, with most of the new revenue earmarked for mountain land. In December 2001, after a settlement with MCO, the town bought 354 acres for $13.6 million, and Scottsdale extended its own preserve to take in 200 acres inside Fountain Hills.
That left the town with land but no proper way into it. The town says the Adero Canyon road access was finished only “after more than 20-years of planning, land acquisition, and construction.” In late 2018 the council approved a swap of 1.5 acres of preserve for 82 contiguous acres, and in November 2018 the trailhead opened. Hiking reports from the following year describe road work still going on along Eagle Ridge Drive. The road is paved now.
The trailhead also tied the town’s trails into the larger system. The Andrews-Kinsey Trail links to Scottsdale’s preserve, and the Sonoran Trail links to Maricopa County’s regional park. The town notes that its preserve, Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve and McDowell Mountain Regional Park together cover about 52,000 acres.
Why it matters
Before 2018, Fountain Hills had a mountain preserve that was hard to reach. The Adero Canyon Trailhead made it usable, and it gave hikers a second way onto the southern McDowells that doesn’t depend on a small neighborhood lot in Scottsdale. For a north Scottsdale hiker, it’s the reason to try the other side of the ridge.