Camelback Mountain

Phoenix's signature peak shaped like a kneeling camel, a popular hike among saguaro cacti.

The city of Phoenix looks after the mountain's trails and public facilities as the Echo Canyon Recreation Area, a popular place for hiking and rock climbing. The mountain also gave its name to Camelback Road, an east-west street about 34 miles long that runs from the edge of Scottsdale to the suburb of Litchfield Park.

Two kinds of rock

The mountain is made of two different rock formations meeting at a geologic gap called an unconformity. The higher part of the peak is Precambrian granite, about 1.5 billion years old. The camel's head is mostly red sandstone that formed in the Oligocene epoch, about 25 million years ago. This is why the head has a different, redder colour from the rest.

People and the mountain

A cave on the north side shows that the Hohokam people used the mountain as a sacred place before they left the area in the 14th century. In January 1879 President Rutherford B. Hayes included it in a large reservation for the Salt River Pima and Maricopa tribes, but the Arizona Territorial Legislature reversed that six months later. Efforts to protect it began in the early 1910s, yet by the 1960s most land had been sold. Senator Barry Goldwater helped protect the higher parts from building in 1965, and it became a city park in 1968.

Hiking and climbing

Two trails climb about 1,280 feet to the top: Echo Canyon Trail, 1.14 miles, and Cholla Trail, 1.4 miles. Both are steep, with dirt, gravel, boulders and some handrails, and the average round trip takes 1.5 to 3 hours. Climbers practice on the Praying Monk, a 100-foot red sandstone rock that looks like a person kneeling in prayer. In 2024 the city decided that the trails may be closed between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. in extreme heat.

On the globe

The model shows the camel-shaped peak with desert plants nearby. Look for the hump and the head of the camel.