Phoenix board approves closing few trails on South Mountain due to heat
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — The city of Phoenix is one step closer to implementing new rules for closing hiking trails at South Mountain Park/Preserve during extreme heat. The Phoenix Parks and Recreation Board unanimously voted on Thursday to shut down only three trails when it’s too hot, instead of the entire mountain.
Officials approved Option A, which would only close the Holbert, Mormon and Hau’pal Loop trails and the Pima Canyon Trailhead access to the National Trail from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. year-round when the National Weather Service issues an extreme heat warning. National Trail would remain open to other access points and other trails at Pima Canyon Trailhead would remain open.
Officials say this option would restrict about 6.71 miles of South Mountain trails, while 121.59 miles of trails would still be open during the nine-hour window.
The board could have rejected the option and continued the status quo that was approved in October, which closed the entire mountain due to the extreme heat. Advocates said the massive closure was too restrictive and impacted reasonable hikers. “As part of like, a group of people that is responsible, and that is in the mountain every day, it feels unfair to us that decisions are made that are the effect of the majority of people are actually very like safe, and there’s a couple of people that maybe are not well prepared, and we’re the victim of that and that fairness to me is really important,” said Marcel Vanderstroom, who lives in Tempe.
Fire crews said that since implementing the current rules, which include closing Camelback Mountain, Piestewa Peak and all South Mountain trails, rescues have gone down. “This is a very large mountain. There’s over 100 miles of trails for hiking, biking, horseback riding. So that in itself gives us a little bit more challenging spots sometimes to get into. So just the sheer size of this mountain will pose its own challenges for us,” said Phoenix Fire Capt. D.J. Lee. “We’re just trying to restrict some trails just to help because our whole, whole whole thing is life safety. We want to protect ourselves. We want to protect the citizens and help each other out.”
Up next for the South Mountain trail closure changes it a vote with the Phoenix City Council. It’s unclear when they’ll discuss it. Again the proposal only affects South Mountain trail closures.
Last year, Phoenix closed trails for 45 days due to extreme heat. The Valley also saw 121 days of temperatures higher than 105 degrees, including 69 of them exceeding 110 degrees.
See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.
Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.
Copyright 2025 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.
