Scottsdale Arizona is one of the best places in Arizona for outdoor recreation. The city is surrounded by natural beauty and boasts many outdoor opportunities. Surrounded by mountains Scottsdale is the perfect places for all hikers of all experience levels.
Camelback Mountain
Camelback Mountain is one of the most popular hikes near Scottsdale/Phoenix and is a popular landmark. The peak of Camelback Mountain is the highest in Phoenix and is only 20 minutes from downtown. The hike has easy, moderate and hard trails to suite all kinds of hikers.
Pinnacle Peak
Pinnacle Peak reaches an elevation of around 3,169 feet. When visiting, people take the moderate 3.5 mile hike round-trip. Since there is a huge elevation change, the views at the top are gorgeous and you can see a lot of the city.
Piestewa Peak
This peak is very popular in the valley of the sun, over half a million people hike up the peak every year! This hike has a moderate difficulty level and is home to many different species of bird life such as hawks, thrushes, wrens, and owls.
McDowell Sonoran Preserve Trails
This nature preserve right in Scottsdale has around 730 types of wild animals and wild plants. The park has trails that gain no elevation and trails that can gain up to 2500 ft in elevation (Tom’s Thumb Trailhead), with many various lookout points.
Hike The Superstition Mountains
The Superstition Mountains are a huge mountain range so there is tons and tons of hiking to be done there. The mountains also have their own mountain museum. The mountains were formed by a volcano millions of years ago. The hikes here can be very lengthy and there are lots of canyons and very tall columns of rocks that attract visitors.
Trails At Papago Park
Papago Park is a beautiful park near Phoenix Botanical Gardens. All of the trails at the park are fairly easy and there are also many biking trails around the area and at the park. Papago Park also has a golf course and many butte loop trails.
