What is the Go John Trail?
Go John is the loop most hikers come to Cave Creek Regional Park for. It circles the mountain at the north end of the park for 5.8 miles, through some of the thickest saguaro stands near the Valley, past old mining ground, with long views south over north Phoenix and north toward the Tonto foothills.
Maricopa County lists it at 411 feet of elevation change and rates it moderate-difficult. That figure understates the effort a little: the trail rolls, and hikers’ GPS tracks record roughly 850 to 1,250 feet of total climbing. Most people take two and a half to three hours. It’s open to hikers, mountain bikers and horses, and the west side of the loop doubles as part of the county’s 300-plus-mile Maricopa Trail.
Unlike the free trailheads in Scottsdale’s Preserve, this is a county park with a gate and a fee: $10 per vehicle or $5 per person on foot, bike or horse. In return you get a paved road, restrooms, water at the nature center and ramadas, and a staffed entrance.
How to hike it
Get there. Take Scottsdale Road north to Carefree Highway, go west about seven miles to 32nd Street and turn north. The entrance station is at the end of the road, about 40 minutes from Old Town. Hours are 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. from November through April and 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. from May through October, and the gate is locked outside them.
Park at the Go John trailhead. Follow the park road to the Go John trailhead near the nature center. On weekends from January through March, the lots can fill by mid-morning.
Choose a direction. Counterclockwise begins with a long, gradual climb. Clockwise begins with steep switchbacks to a saddle with a bench and a view, which gets the hardest climbing out of the way early. Either way, there’s another solid climb, on granite and loose rock, about three-quarters of the way around, and a hillside covered in white quartz near the end.
Share the trail. All of it is multi-use. The west side of Go John overlaps the Overton Trail and carries the Maricopa Trail, so that stretch sees the most horses and bikes. Yield to horses and call out on blind corners.
Carry water. There’s none on the loop and almost no shade. Two liters per person is the floor in cool weather. From May through September, start at the opening hour or skip it; see our summer sunrise hiking rules.
Shorter options. The Overton Trail (2.1 miles) and Slate Trail (1.6 miles) start nearby and suit kids or a short morning. For something harder up the road, try the Elephant Mountain Trail at Spur Cross Ranch.
Mining hills, then a county park
The hills Go John circles were prospected and mined from the late 1800s, and the park’s other trail names, Clay Mine, Flume, Slate, Quartz and Jasper, come from that period. Maricopa County established Cave Creek Regional Park in 1963 as part of a ring of regional parks on federal land around the Valley, and it built the nature center, campground, ramadas and trail system over the decades that followed.
We couldn’t find a reliable source for where the name Go John comes from, and the county doesn’t publish one, so we won’t guess.
Part of a bigger loop
The Go John Trail is also a piece of the Maricopa Trail, the regional trail the county approved in 2004 to link its parks around the Valley. The county’s segment map shows the Maricopa Trail using the Overton Trail and the west side of Go John through the park before heading north toward Spur Cross. When the county celebrated the trail’s completion on November 17, 2018, it held the event here.
Why it matters
Go John is the best example of what the county parks offer that Scottsdale’s Preserve doesn’t: a long loop with a gate, restrooms, water at the start and a campground next door, for the price of a parking fee. From north Scottsdale it’s the easiest way to spend a winter morning in serious saguaro country without the crowds of the city’s busiest trailheads.