Camelback Mountain (Echo Canyon)
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The Echo Canyon Trail is another more popular Trail in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. It is one of the two trails that lead to the summit of Camelback Mountain. The Echo Canyon Trail is one of the more difficult trails to hike. It is an excellent training trail for hikes such as the Mount Humphries hike because the hiker must scale difficult ascents and scurry over large rocks. This condition exists at the top of Mount Humphries. It is not as well suited for training of the Grand Canyon Hikes. Squaw Peak is far better for that. The geology is far different also. Where Squaw Peak is volcanic in nature, Echo Canyon is de-composed granite, which tends to be very slippery. Where I normally recommend trekking poles on most hikes, I do not recommend them for the Echo Canyon trail. I definitely recommend gloves be worn though. The elevation at the start is 1,446 ft.; and is 2,624 ft. at the summit. Although the Summit is 16 feet higher than Squaw Peak, the total ascent is only 1,178 feet, 30 feet less than the Squaw Peak Summit Trail. The trail consists of various grades from the bottom to the top it still averages 20.64% over the entire 1.09 mile length. This is quite a bit steeper in relation to the 19.06% average grade of the Squaw Peak Summit trail.
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| Park Entrance | Ramada at the Trail Head |
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| Trail Head | First Ascent |
Once in the parking area, you pass through the Ramada to the trail head. You then proceed down a series of steps, and then up more steps which is the trail in front of you. The first section of the hike is relatively steep and is a stair step section railroad ties which are placed close together. Although this section only consists of a few hundred yards in length, it ascends 119 feet and gets the blood flowing right away. The trail grade then relaxes but is still very stair step in nature.
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| Around the Camel's Head | Many Steps |
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| View of Squaw Peak | Trail to the Summit |
After a nice relaxed pace you come upon a very steep, very smooth rocky section which resembles a slide. There are pipe handrails to enable the hiker to pull himself up that section of the trail. In face, there are two such sections of trail. Once past that section, you come to the saddle.
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| Looking Up the Slide | Looking Down the Slide |
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| The Saddle | The Back of the Camel's Head |
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| The Final Ascent | The Summit |
Above the saddle, the hikes goes up the final ascent. During this portion of the hike footing can be treacherous and care must be exercised. Many of the rocks the hiker must scramble over are very high steps which can create problems for a short legged person. Once at the summit, the view is spectacular. It is definitely worth the hike.
In this hikers opinion, Echo Canyon is a far more difficult hike than Squaw Peak, or many of the other hikes in the valley. It is no where near as aerobic a hike as others, but it does have other challenges that cannot be found elsewhere. For optimum training, I would recommend a combination of other hikes, with Echo Canyon included to provide a well rounded, well trained hiker.
Larry Wayt (larry@live2hike.org)