What is the Fountain Hills McDowell Mountain Preserve?
Most people who hike the McDowells hike Scottsdale’s side. The Town of Fountain Hills owns a smaller piece of the range: 824 acres of steep, rocky slope on the northwest edge of town, wedged between Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve and Maricopa County’s McDowell Mountain Regional Park. The town says the three together cover about 52,000 acres.
The preserve has about 12 miles of trail and two ways in. The main one is the Adero Canyon Trailhead at 14800 N. Eagle Ridge Dr., opened in 2018 with restrooms, water and a shade ramada. The other is the Golden Eagle Trailhead at 14425 E. Golden Eagle Blvd., which the town’s map puts at about 2,130 feet. It has a small lot and restroom facilities, and it’s mainly the walk-in route to the Dixie Mine Trail in the county park.
The trails are short and mostly hard. The town rates them from moderate to extremely difficult, and they climb fast to views over the fountain, the Verde River country and Four Peaks. It’s free and open dawn to dusk.
The trails and how to use them
From Adero Canyon. The town’s trails all start here. The Promenade Trail (about 0.95 miles, moderate) is the easiest. The Overlook and Ridgeline trails (Ridgeline is about 1.3 miles, moderately difficult) climb to views over town. The Western Loop is about 1.28 miles with 573 feet of elevation change and is rated extremely difficult; the town’s newer map labels it the Western Trail. The Sonoran Trail (about 1.8 miles, difficult) runs north and continues 0.8 miles into the county park, with 330 feet of elevation change on that stretch. The Andrews-Kinsey Trail runs about half a mile in town and then 2 miles into Scottsdale’s preserve to the Sunrise Trail, the back route to Sunrise Peak.
From Golden Eagle. Park at the town lot, then follow signs about 0.6 miles on pavement through the Eagles Nest community to the Dixie Mine Trail. The town’s map also shows a Lower Sonoran Trail running from this side toward the Sonoran Trail. Once you cross into McDowell Mountain Regional Park, the county charges a walk-in fee. The town’s page lists $2 per person, but the county’s fee schedule for 2026 lists $5 for hike, bike or horse entry. Our Dixie Mine page covers the trail, the mine’s history and why you shouldn’t go near the entrance at dusk.
Follow the town’s rules. Stay on posted trails. Dogs must be on a physical leash, and the town asks owners to carry waste bags to a trash can, not leave them on the trail. No horses, no smoking or open flame, no alcohol or glass. Bikes yield to everyone, and the town’s tourism office says e-bikes aren’t allowed. Don’t ride or hike on wet, muddy trails.
Use the emergency markers. The town measures trail mileage between numbered emergency markers on the sign posts. If you need help, give the dispatcher the nearest marker number.
Learn it with a guide. The Sonoran Conservancy of Fountain Hills and the town’s McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission run free guided hikes in season, generally October through April, with registration through the town. Volunteer trailhead hosts are usually at Adero Canyon on weekends in the same months.
Respect the season. The preserve’s slopes are exposed and face the morning and midday sun. In summer, hike at first light and be done early; see our summer sunrise hiking rules. Many of the trails also run close to homes, and the town asks hikers to respect private property.
A preserve bought in pieces
Fountain Hills began as a master-planned community, and much of the undeveloped mountain land above it was still held by the town’s developer, MCO Properties, into the 1990s. The preserve is the result of the town buying and negotiating some of it into public hands.
According to the town’s own history, the effort began in April 1995, the same spring Scottsdale voters approved their first preserve tax. An 11-member task force ranked priority land in three sections of the mountain and recommended a standing commission, which the council appointed in February 1996. The commission wanted up to $10 million in bonds; the council asked for less, and in November 1997, 64% of voters approved $6 million.
The first deal fell apart. In 1998 a committee proposed buying 300 acres from MCO for $6 million, about $20,000 an acre, in exchange for rezoning another section for smaller lots. Residents objected, and the plan died under the threat of a referendum. In 1999 the council instead designated 386 acres, gained through a settlement and a land trade, as the Fountain Hills McDowell Mountain Preserve, while negotiations for more land went on. In October 2000 the council approved a small sales tax increase, with three-quarters of the revenue set aside for mountain land.
The big purchase came in December 2001: after a settlement with MCO, the town bought 354 acres for $13.6 million, about $38,400 an acre. In the same period Scottsdale extended its own preserve to include 200 acres inside Fountain Hills. In late 2018 the council traded 1.5 acres of preserve for 82 contiguous acres, and that November the Adero Canyon Trailhead finally gave the preserve a proper public entrance. The town now lists the preserve at 824 acres. Its published history doesn’t fully account for how the acquisitions add up to that figure.
Why it matters
The preserve is small, but it fills a gap. Without it, the southeast slope of the McDowells would likely have been built on, and Scottsdale’s preserve and the county park would be separated from Fountain Hills by subdivisions. Instead, a hiker can walk from the Adero Canyon lot into Scottsdale’s preserve on the Andrews-Kinsey Trail, or into the county park on the Sonoran or Dixie Mine trails. For north Scottsdale hikers, it’s a way onto the same mountains from the less crowded side. See our Fountain Hills guide for the rest of town, including Fountain Park.