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Ranger Marker
Hiking in Phoenix, Arizona
Squaw Peak, Echo Canyon hiking, Arizona
Many of those who like to visit mother nature’s bounties hike
to and through many places in the US and throughout Arizona.
In our South-West state, we have a variety of natural environments to visit
and two of those that are well known to locals
are hiking trails adjacent to central Phoenix.
Your author has climbed these two popular
hills intermittently for 27 years. The easier
of the two is called Squaw Peak whose name
was changed by the federal government when
a young lady became the first female battle
casualty in the Iraqi war. With the greatest
of respect to her, those who still climb this
hill still called it Squaw Peak. It has 3 trails
of varying lengths with the most popular being
just over 1 mile in length.
The other hill with a more difficult climb is called Camelback mountain but in tourist materials it is called Echo Canyon. Within this article, your author will offer perspectives of both
climbs/hikes.
I have been climbing Squaw Peak for 27 yrs and have been up it to some distance [I don’t always go to the top.] To get to Squaw Peak, from any direction– it is located at Squaw Peak Drive, on the north side of Lincoln Drive, near the border of Phoenix and the ritzy enclave of Paradise Valley. When one turns off Lincoln Road [just east of the freeway] the park is about 3 blocks up the road, no turn-offs needed. You know that you are getting ready to visit a unique hill when the road speed drops quickly from 25 to 15 with the speed reduced sign at the top of a roller coaster mini hill–odd place for the sign reduction–with a speed bump at the top of the mini roller coaster!
One minute further, on the right, is one of 3 parking lots and the one I take most often.
I lock up my car, and one needs only look around oneself and one will see the hill to the left
[across the street]. To make it easy, a mini pathway takes one from the parking lot area directly to the base of the hill where most people begin their assent.
This park has no concession stands [thankfully] but it does have, about 100 yards further up the road, rest room facilities.
At the base of the hill, there is room to sit with benches and a roofed area. In case you get there and there are no other hikers, there is a map and legend at the base of the hill to guide you. Frankly, the legend is user unfriendly–it shows the hill from areas dozens of miles away and unless I am missing in my vision, the “normal” start area’s restroom was not even listed on the legend/map. Regardless, this hill is about 1 mile from its base to its summit. It is considered an easy climb and this author agrees that it is easy! From children aged 4 hand holding to their parents, to adults over age 75 have climbed this hill. In very few cases, if one is not paying attention to the ups and downs of the pathway and its logic, it is possible to get lost–to walk off the main pathway. I will go into that shortly to help you make sure you do not become victim to that possibility [a friend of your author chose to walk ahead of him on one descent 24 yrs ago and the friend failed to watch the pathway twist and turn and, walked down and slipped over 300 feet to the bottom. Also, every year, from ½ mile up, all the way to the top, adventurists who chose to hike away from the trail, 1-2 people get stuck and have to be helicopter lifted off and every 3 years or so, someone dies from falling or sliding hundreds of feet AFTER not watching their pathways.
If one uses Google or other aerial photos of the area, one will see trails that go to the housing area to the west of the hill and the viewer will also see paths that take 25-150 foot tangents just “down a little ways.” Years ago, I wondered, “what if I was new to this mountain and for some reason I am the only one hiking–how to I know for sure that the pathway I want to take is the one that goes to the top? I have studied the paths from walking the main one and taking 2 off 25 feet or so and looked at all of them from these Google air photos. The way, I deduce, to stay on the main pathway, is to look at size of the width of the path. I would say that the path that goes from the bottom to the top is on average, 7 feet in width. The paths
that go down towards the west or that take short jaunts a few hundred feet, and that carry very few people, are strewn with much smaller rocks, less sturdy materials and are 3-5 feet wide. I have both taken some of these a few dozen feet on purpose and accidentally. There is no doubt that “hey, what happened to the path?” Will be your response in just a minute off the main path.
Let me guide again, on how it is possible to miss, for a minute or so, the main path.
Unless one is a fool, one looks down at the ground most of the time while climbing since one needs to make sure of the condition of the ground-almost flat, rock, or a combo of the two, and where to place each foot for the entire climb excluding the few 50-100 ft stretches of almost flat, dirt pathway. Since one is looking down a lot, it is not at all impossible to continue going straight as long as a pathway takes you straight. Or, the pathway can and does, often, to dozens of feet straight and then it will take a 60-85 or almost a 160 degree turn. So, the way I climb is to pause every 25 to 50 feet for 1-3 seconds. When I pause, I make sure I am not
blocking the path for others behind me and I also make sure that my footing is good enough to allow me to stand still for a few seconds without losing balance. As long as I do that, when the small pathways adjoin the main pathway, I will recognize them as smaller and if others are coming down, are they coming from that path? It is, again, 50% possible to take a wrong
path during one ascent. It is almost impossible to take the wrong one when going down because the eyes have a wider scanning view–up one sees maybe 15 degrees above the pathway and to the right and left from there. Coming down, one sees maybe 50 degrees along the pathway and to the right and left further. [One never sees the top while walking along the path till one is less than 100 feet from it but one sees the parking lot from dozens of
spots along the descent.]
Let’s begin “visually” and hike the path way together now:
While one can begin the assent from 3 different places and join the hike “somewhere along the path”, everyone I know starts their assent from the parking area next to the legend sign area. It is hard to miss!
We take our NECESSARY water, and aim to the right, about 3-5 degrees in climb.
An almost equal entry begins 150 feet to the right and meets the pathway about 100 feet up the hill. We quickly see a sign that depicts dogs and bicycles are not permitted [your author has actually seen a kid in his 20's holding in his right hand fully extended above his head, a racing bicycle!]
The road twists to the left where the two –right or left side beginning pathways
meet. We now turn to the left and step over well set rocks [or natural rocks] and climb
and climb and climb up a sort of rock pathway that has obvious edges; a cement-type ridge about 6 inches wide on the one side [left facing up] and the hill on the other side.
After we have twisted 2-3 times, we reach the first break/rest part with a brass marker embedded into some rock.
Then, we turn to the right and continue up. This part of the climb, up to the 1/4 mile
walker, pretty much twists every 100-150 feet to the right or left. While it may not be obvious, those who are descending the hill return using the same pathway, so we hikers will rarely be on a pathway for more than 5 minutes before we meet a descender.
There are no razor sharp rocks that this hiker has ever seen on the hike–nor are there
dangerous animals or bugs–but between the ½ way marker and the top, a complaint
that seems common [maybe just in the summer?] Regards gnats or other small bugs. I have never seen a dead animal which would attract them but once they have “sensed” you, you will get 1-2 to fly close to you all the way down the hill. They are pesky and any ascending hiker who watches, will often seen descenders waving away these pests. I have never had the discomfort of the pests on the ascent–no idea why that is.
At a 1/4 mile up, there is a bench. Then, the next marker is not ½ mile but instead, .6 mile. I do not understand the logic behind that.
In-between the .6 marker and the top, on a left twist as one ascends, there are larger boulders and an “assist bar” embedded into the rock and elevated about 5 feet above the rock so that
most climbers can reach it and use it to pull themselves up at that part of the hill.
Visually Impaired hikers:
If one has plenty of time, and one has a helper, this particular hill is surmountable if one
is visually handicapped–as long as one realizes that--seeking with a climbing cane is almost useless since there are only 2 stretches of 35 feet distance that are rock free and flat.
[On mountains where the rocks are just a few inches in size but there is a lot of snow
to surmount, I can see where vision is not a critical component.] This author was involved
with a visually handicapped person decades ago and cannot imagine, at this time, hiking
either hill without spending tremendous amounts of time trying to figure out where to put one’s feet. This author, under no circumstances is claiming on either hill, one needs good vision–but at the same time, the author cannot imagine the amount of time needed to guide a hiker by having to say ‘now put your right foot another inch to the left, and having to say that for 96% of the distance up and down both hills!
Back to Squaw Peak
As one gets about 25 feet from the summit, it would seem reasonable [maybe anti-climatic?] to
have a small sign “the summit is identified by a small 5 inch diameter brass circular
marker plaque” which is 15 feet directly above this sign; please stay on the albeit tightened trail.
As a hiker squeezes up these last 25 feet, there are spaces/rocks in a 12 foot diameter
area around the marker and if one stretches himself carefully and climbs with a sharp
eye, one can climb over to the ‘other’ top of the hill that stretches about 8 feet in diameter.
Thus, it is fair to say that Squaw Peak is a double summit–with very careful movement
needed to transfer between these two areas.
One smarty pants climber stood on an a summit edge boulder about 20 yrs ago and lost his balance; on the north side of the hill at the summit, it is at least 200 feet straight down to the
beginning slant of the hill. This emphasizes that while there are various [long] ways to get
up and down this hill, few people take the “longer, less traveled route” and most of those
people wind up being forced to seek a helicopter ride down!” [Meaning, if there is no obvious path where you are, backtrack immediately till you return to an obvious part of the path.]
There are perhaps 3-5 mini trees or bushes adjacent to the pathway one can sit under if one wants some privacy.
Time needs;
Give yourself an hour to get to the top and 15% more to get down. I have asked myself why
descending would ever be slower. I have deduced that; we bend our bodies slightly forward when we hike upwards. When we are descending, we have a mini battle with ourselves;
we need to keep our balance which requires a mild leaning backwards and then we also need to bend forwards MORE as we need to be sure of where we are putting our feet so as not to step on lose rock or gravel or when we need to miss pointed rocks and keep your feet as level as you can for GRIP.
When you visit this hill, you will find many younger people with ear plug radios to help motivate them to CLIMB. [To me that is silly- I need to stay focused as to where my feet will land per step!]
Some of these same kids also seem either excite or bored and like to JOG uphill–all the way to the end of the path –if you will–while the last 15 feet requires true rock grabbing and foot placements!
I have never seen anyone eating on the hill but 75% of the climbers take water. My
first 5 climbs were without water and I sure regretted that at the end of the hike.
I think this hill is also open 24/7. At a specific time of the evening I am presuming hikers
use hat lights. I can imagine doing this at night but not without preparation and more
caution!
I have never known anyone to be attacked or robbed or whatever on this hill–perhaps
because there are never fewer than 25 people going up or down at any given time and
a “bad person” would have a very very difficult time hiding.
While I do not think it has ever snowed on Squaw Peak, it does rain on it and I would not
imagine it being safe hiking it during or right after a rain since the GRAB needed by
the shoes on rocks would be reduced or eliminated in rainy situations!
End–Squaw Peak
Echo Canyon–
Let’s now discuss the competitor [?] to Squaw Peak, its neighbor only 4 miles away,
Camelback Mt, aka, Echo Canyon.
If one ever finds Squaw Peak to be difficult-- 200 feet of Echo Canyon will be found to be
nearly impossible to climb. [I emphasize the word nearly.]
The parking seems tighter. There is one obvious parking area immediately adjacent to the trail and parallel parking directly below the entry to this parking area. I have been told there is another area just a few hundred feet away but it was not obvious and this hiking area is adjacent to luxury homes.
Presuming you surmount the parking problem– prior to climbing, Echo has rest rooms [porta-potties] and a covered sitting area for preparing to hike or for cooling down prior to getting into one’s car.
The trail is immediately to the right–one climbs down [5"x5"x5' wood step edges with dirt
STEPS] about 8 steps, then across flat land about 15 feet and then bends to the left and
begins the climb–about 350 dirt steps with these same wooden step edges. At a few
places there are huge boulders adjacent to the
steps.
Echo has one trail instead of the 3 that Squaw Peak has. Again, everyone shares the
same pathway up or down, thus, some alert courtesy is needed when one is
slow and faster people come up behind oneself. never hesitate to either stand still [to let them maneuver around me] or if the pathway has mini 4 ft pathways to the right or left around large rocks, I step to the path that the descenders are obviously not using–if I can get to it quickly for a few second wait.
Just as Squaw Peak has a 15-25 ft long metal bar embedded at a specific point to help less agile climbers surmount one part of the hill, Echo Canyon, being tougher in angle and types of rocks to climb, tries to make things easier at this point to do what Squaw Peak does not do; it offers for maybe 100 yards, a split pathway. The perhaps 8 ft wide pathway has a similar
metal bar embedded into the dirt and, like in a school stairways, the bar rises to a height of about 5 ft and then, stays about 1-3 feet above the middle of the pathway’s rocks– acting in a two-fold role; it is a divider for ascending climbers who want to stay out of the way of the descenders and it acts as a helper to grab onto! When I last [July 09] ascended the hill [on purpose to go only ½ way] I had the choice of 2 negatives; burn my hands on the bar, or –still ascending, act like a spider and grab the fence on the descender’s side of this part of the pathway so as to have climbing leverage! I could not have climbed this hill at my age of 62 without the bar or fence to allow me to pull. My legs do not have that much strength left in them to climb some angles of rock without the added pull available in my arms.
Thus, at the top of the wooded lipped steps, one turns to the right and goes about 50 ft and
on the opposite side of the path–the descending side, the hill drops off, in some places steeply–so the park rangers installed a earthen color fence to be used as both a safety barrier and a grab-hold device as one either ascends or descends.
In most cases, hikers are able to stick to one side of the path going up and the other going down but I never heard one complaint when some of us needed the fence to grab on while going up and meeting others coming down. Younger people are often able to simply “with confidence” step around we “fence attachers” or when we could tolerate it, the bar grabbers [over 150 degrees in the sun].
I was not knowingly negatively affected by the sun’s heat [it was about 106 going up] but
the rocks and the less-easy-to-find places to put one’s feet make Echo Canyon much more formidable then is Squaw Peak.
I needed to rest about every 25 feet ascending Echo’s pathway. Then, in what I knew was a smart move for me, I could see the end of the bar about 25 feet above me-- I made like a sloppy, draggy ape and finally got to the top of the bar part of the pathway. I sat to the left side of the path for a minute and then continued my ascent [without the fence or bar to
assist me] as the pathway became much less challenging. After about 50 more feet, I sat down again to compute where I had just been, where I was, the warmth of my bottled water, and the distance still to hike!
I could easily give myself an excuse because my significant other was also waiting for me to return home to shower and go out to breakfast–but I was pooped!
I then chose, without any guilt feelings whatever, to turn around at this just past the 1/4 mile
marker, and start my descent.
Quickly I met two seated female nurses who were preparing for this difficult part of the decent. We offered to switch off–one stay close to me then I to her to help break a fall if either of us misjudge our strength on the bar or fence grabbing and slip anywhere.
I had gotten about 10 feet and began to feel my first-ever bit of gravity unsureness and
was unbalanced for 3 seconds; an interesting feeling. When asked by ‘my nurse’ how I was, I responded that I was in-between sure and not-sure. She was ready to climb 3 ft to grab me if needed. Since 3 seconds go by quickly, I got my mountain legs back and informed her so as I slowly continued my descent, switching from using the fence as security to using the bar–just as hot as it was ascending 5 minutes previously.
It took a good 25 minutes to get to the bottom of the bar/fence area and I was glad I only new needed to walk down those 350 [?] dirt/wooden edged steps to reach the bottom.
I was a bit woozy at the bottom and sat down to regain my gravity and alertness. From high above, I had not been able to see my car and was thus, a bit concerned; it was hiding In-between two SUVs that had pulled up while I was on the hike.
I left that canyon hike relieved I had not fallen anywhere and glad I would not need that damn hot bar again, anytime soon!
When I hiked Echo the first time, perhaps 25 yrs previously, I made it to the top. Since then, 1-2 girls have fallen off it to their death and that was all I have ever heard about Echo Canyon mishaps.
Squaw Peak provides the news about sloppy or unalert hikers! Annually, someone one faints during their ascent. Every two years, someone must be airlifted off the hill!
About the Author
free-lance writer, business consultant, RE broker
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