Arizona offers some of the most fascinating and challenging hiking in the country. All across the state's lowland deserts, there are parks and other public lands laced with trails that lead past saguaro cacti, to the tops of desert peaks, and deep into rugged canyons. The state also has vast forests that contain wilderness areas and many more miles of hiking trails. In northern Arizona, there are good day hikes in Grand Canyon National Park, in the San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff, near Page and Lake Powell, and in Navajo National Monument. In the Phoenix area, popular day hikes include the trails up Camelback Mountain and Piestewa (Squaw) Peak and the many trails in South Mountain Park. In the Tucson area, there are good hikes on Mount Lemmon and in Saguaro National Park, Sabino Canyon, and Catalina State Park. In the southern part of the state, there are good day hikes in Chiricahua National Monument, Coronado National Forest, the Nature Conservancy's Ramsey Canyon Preserve and Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Sanctuary, Cochise Stronghold, and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

The state's two most unforgettable overnight backpack trips are the hike down to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and the hike into Havasu Canyon, a side canyon of the Grand Canyon. Another popular backpacking trip is through Paria Canyon, beginning in Utah and ending in Arizona at Lees Ferry. There are also overnight opportunities in the San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff and in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona.


Related Topics: Hiking Arizona, Backpacking Arizona