Papago Loop - 10/04/09

If you have ever flown into Phoenix, you've probably noticed the red sandstone "mountains" near the airport.  This area, home to the Desert Botanical Garden and the Phoenix Zoo, is known as Papago Park.  The history of the Papago Park is interesting:  originally settled by the Hohokam Indians, declared a national monument in 1914, that status revoked in 1932, used as a prisoner of war camp during WWII (area by the zoo), and eventually purchased by the city of Phoenix in 1959.

The 1,200 acres of Papago Park is a popular recreation spot for Valley residents and visitors alike. When our grandson was young, we'd hike the "Hole-in-the-Rock" trail. This is a fun, easy trail where you can climb through the large hole near the top of a sandstone butte onto a spacious ledge. There's room for several people to sit, enjoy a picnic, while looking over the zoo and watching the planes come and go at the airport.

The West Papago Loop, which our research calls this group of trails, was nearly 4 miles long.  It took us around the circumference of  the large butte (pictured right) and the small butte.

It was a beautiful morning.  The deep blue skies with small fluffy white clouds provided a stunning contrast to the sandstone buttes.  The inclines in the trails were just enough to keep our interest but not as challenging as last week's hike at South Mountain. Mountain bikers were having a good time on these trails and not struggling with some of the inclines like on the trails at South Mountain!

We started up the paved path until we reached the Large Butte circumference trail and started clockwise around the butte. The reward of going this direction was the view of downtown Phoenix about halfway around the butte (picture above) and seeing the stone amphitheater built by the Civil Conservation Corp. many years ago but still in good shape.

Once around the Large Butte we crossed over the paved loop trail and circled the Small Butte. We returned to the paved trail to complete the loop back to the parking lot. OK, truth be told, the paved trail leads to the golf course parking lot, not the trailhead where we started. We missed the turn for the trail that follows along the fence separating the golf course from the rest of the park.  Realizing our missed turn, we back tracked to the correct path and continued on the loop. It's all there on the map of our hike (link below, click on PLAY in the lower right corner of the map to watch our path).

As we neared the end of our hike, we noticed movement in the desert area.  It wasn't just one animal, there were several but they were so fast it was hard to get a good look. Finally one of them stayed put long enough for us to get a photo:  a very large jack rabbit!

These little buttes seem pretty small compared to the surrounding mountain ranges. Then we noticed a hiker who had climbed to the top of the Small Butte (picture right, click on the picture to get a better look). Seeing how small this grown man looked on top of the smaller of the buttes made us realize that these are still some mighty big rocks!

More information about the Papago Park area and our hike:
http://www.phoenix.gov/PARKS/hikpagud.html
and our trail map and stats.

Rating:  4 out of 5.  Definitely an easy hike. There are options to keep interest and the beautiful Papago Park is always a pleasant experience.

Next week, back to one of our favorite hiking areas, the Superstition Mountains and the Dutchman Trail, at least part of it.  More next week.