What is Black Mountain?
From anywhere in far north Scottsdale, look north and you’ll see a dark, sharp peak standing alone between Cave Creek and Carefree. That’s Black Mountain, about 3,398 feet high, rising roughly 1,000 feet above the desert around it.
The Black Mountain Summit Trail is the Town of Cave Creek’s route up its north side. It’s short and steep: about 2.2 to 2.5 miles round trip and 1,050 to 1,300 feet of climbing, depending on where you park. The trail starts at the end of a residential dead-end road off Schoolhouse Road, climbs hard almost immediately, levels off along the summit ridge, and finishes at a rocky top with an American flag and a full 360-degree view: Carefree, Cave Creek, the Tonto foothills, Pinnacle Peak and the McDowells.
It’s not in Scottsdale, and it isn’t developed like the city’s Preserve. There’s no lot, no restrooms, no water, no shade and no official hours. But it’s the closest real summit to the north end of the city, and on a cool morning it’s one of the best hours you can spend outside up here.
How to hike it
Plan for parking. The only legal parking is a few small dirt pull-offs on Schoolhouse Road, about ten cars in total. If they’re full, don’t park on the residential streets nearby. Hikers report tickets and towing, and the neighborhood’s patience is what keeps this trail open. Weekday mornings are easiest.
Find the start. Walk up the paved dead-end road. A brown sign on the right marks the trail, and another marks the trailhead at the end of the road, between two driveways. Pass quietly.
Stay on the main trail. Lots of unofficial paths split off from the main tread. Most rejoin it, but they make the route hard to follow on rocky sections, especially coming down in low light. Load a GPS track before you go, and when in doubt, take the most worn path.
Pace yourself. The climb is steep and continuous, on loose rock, until you reach the ridge. The summit has a few flat spots and room for several groups. Coming down is the slow part: take your time and use poles if you have them.
Pick the season and time. November through March is best. In warm months, go at sunrise. It’s also a popular sunset and night-lights hike; bring a headlamp, since the descent is where people lose the trail.
Make a day of it. Spend the rest of the morning in Carefree (the Carefree Desert Gardens and Sundial are about five minutes away) or in Cave Creek. For a longer desert hike nearby, try Spur Cross Ranch or Cave Creek Regional Park.
Two kinds of rock
The mountain looks volcanic from a distance, but there’s no basalt on it. The dark west face is about 250 meters of phyllite and argillite, old sedimentary rock metamorphosed and squeezed until it shortened by as much as half, then tilted to the northwest when the region pulled apart in the Tertiary. The east side is granite from the same roughly 14-million-year-old batholith that forms the McDowells and Camelback Mountain. It weathers into the rounded boulders and balanced stacks you’ll see all over north Scottsdale.
People and the mountain
Hohokam farmers lived along upper Cave Creek from around 750 AD until about 1450. Their sites survive nearby at Spur Cross and Sears-Kay. After them, the area was Apache country into the 1870s, when gold strikes in the hills brought miners and a military road through what’s now Cave Creek. Ranching followed, then dude ranches, then the low-density desert towns of Cave Creek and Carefree, which grew up around the mountain.
Keeping the mountain open has been a local effort. The Black Mountain Conservancy worked to protect the mountain’s views until it merged into the Desert Foothills Land Trust in 2009. In 2012 the land trust dedicated a 5-acre preserve next to the town’s summit trail, using donated land it could have sold for development.
Why it matters
Black Mountain shows what north Scottsdale’s desert looked like before the city’s Preserve formalized it: a neighborhood trail, a few pull-offs, a flag on top, and an arrangement among neighbors, a town, a county and a land trust that only works if hikers respect it.