After a particularly stressful week at work, I needed a little diversion – something to take me to another place. What I needed, I decided, was a hike with a bit of a bite.
And I knew just the place. The Yaeger Canyon Loop Trail in the Mingus Mountain range between Prescott and Jerome has long been my go-to hike for a strenuous, quick workout in a beautiful setting. And some serious seclusion!
Sometimes it’s about the mind-blowing terrain. Sometimes it’s about the colorful wildflowers. And sometimes it’s about the endurance – just getting it done.
Today, I’d have to say my hike was all about the clouds.
In northern Arizona, there’s a sweet spot in hiking – that stretch in June, when the temperatures warm to the 80s and 90s, the trees are in full bloom, and the summer monsoon rains have yet to start.
I call it the “pre-monsoonal season.” For the most part, you can plan a hike or other outdoor activity without too many worries about getting caught in a violent thunderstorm. Still, as the dew point rises, and the conditions work gradually up to the monsoon, you’re sure to get some amazing clouds.
It was that kind of day today. As soon as I opened my front door and felt the slightly muggy air (for arid Arizona anyway), I knew the clouds would be cropping up – white and puffy – everywhere.
Imagine a rolling sea, with nothing but waves as far as the eye can see. Instead of churning water, though, these waves are made of solid rock. And rather than blues and greens, the waves are in hues of reds and browns.
That is what you’ll find when you venture into the Granite Dells trails in Prescott, Arizona. But rest assured that you won’t be climbing aboard without a compass: A series of white dots and maps will steer you through.
For more than a decade, Prescott’s Parks and Recreation Department and a group of intrepid volunteers have been building trails through the Dells. Because many of the routes take hikers and mountain bikers over sheer rock faces, the trails are marked with white dots to point the way.
For me, the opportunity to feel like a rock climber (sort of!) without the risk, or need for technical skills, is pure fun. I have my favorites among Prescott’s “white-dot trails.” Here are five of the best:
All spring long, a flamboyant display of colors has been unfolding quietly in the rocky hills of Prescott, Arizona.
Thanks, apparently, to the relatively wet winter of 2015, the prickly plants that normally wouldn’t warrant a second glance have been showing their more attractive sides. Every time I venture out on the trail lately, it seems, I notice a new type of cactus or shrub sporting flowers in gorgeous hues of reds, pinks, and yellows.
In a lot of ways, this season’s floral bounty has opened my eyes to the less obvious pleasures of hiking.
When I started exploring the trails in Arizona’s high desert years ago, I tended to pay more attention to the big attractions. I had my standards: To make all of that hard work worth it, a hike needed to come with a payoff – either a gorgeous, sweeping view, or water of some type.
When I walk along the Peavine Trail in Prescott, Arizona, I can’t help but think about the train passengers of long ago, who must have been agog at the scenery that flashed by.
The massive granite formations that make up the area’s Granite Dells surely seemed close enough to touch as the old Santa Fe Railroad passed by the iconic Point of Rocks and the many other massive granite formations lining the route.
The Peavine – so named because its route reportedly was as twisty as the vine of a pea plant – once carried passengers and freight between Ash Fork, Arizona to the north, and Phoenix to the south.
Abandoned as a train route decades ago, the railroad bed now serves as a recreational trail, and regularly carries hundreds of walkers, cyclists, runners, and equestrians.
Stick to the main route, and you will get none of the twists and turns of the old Peavine. The six miles that are part of Prescott’s trail system largely skirt the tortuous grades and turns, and instead offer a wide, flat trail with a gradual rise.
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