South Mountain Preserve – Phoenix AZ

Dec 26, 2025 | US National & State Parks

Sometimes there really is cool stuff right in your own backyard.  In our case, it's not exactly our backyard but it's close by and it's a great place to hike when the weather isn't pizza oven hot and you don't have to worry about being taken off the mountain by helicopter because you're having a heatstroke. 

Christmas Eve fits the bill as a perfect day to climb around on South Mountain.  There are a few ridgelines that have amazing views of both the north and south sides of the preserve, and there are hieroglyphs and some structures that are cool to check out as well.  Every time we go up, we always get a different look at things – this time it was a scattering of poppies starting to bloom on the hillside, some really interesting looking lichen on the rocks (neither of which will be here once the weather gets warm again), and a super interesting trek back down with a couple of AI engineers from Intel that we met on the return.

 

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