Wildflowers carpet the floor of Saguaro National Park in April and May/Friends of Saguaro National Park

Spring is the perfect time to explore the trails at Saguaro National Park in Arizona—as you can enjoy moderate temperatures, and often spectacular displays of spring wildflowers. The park offers nearly 200 miles of hiking, biking and equestrian trails, presenting visitors of every ability with a variety of recreational experiences. The park’s trails connect with the region’s extensive (and popular) trails network, and are a stone’s throw from “The Loop” – Tucson’s 110-mile urban trail, encircling the entire city.

Tucson is also well-known as one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the nation, with more than 730 miles of designated bikeways that connect to popular cycling routes through both the east and west districts of Saguaro National Park. In the (east) Rincon Mountain District, the park has opened the popular 2.8-mile Hope Camp Trail to bicycle use as a multi-use trail.

For hikers, the Arizona Trail National Scenic Trail traverses the Rincon Mountains via short segments of many trails with Saguaro National Park before exiting the Rincon Wilderness into the Coronado National Forest, and heading on to the Santa Catalina Mountains.

The park’s nonprofit partner, Friends of Saguaro National Park, provides both money and volunteers to help the park maintain its trails network—securing nearly $200,000 in recent years to make significant improvements to high-use trails—including the conversion of the Mica View Trail into an ADA-compliant trail.

In 2015, Friends of Saguaro worked with volunteers from the Arizona Trail Association to install two new trail gates in the Rincon Mountain District—providing added convenience for cyclists, hikers and equestrians.

In 2016, high school students participating in the “Saguaro Youth Corps Training Program” helped to mitigate the negative impacts of erosion on the Signal Hill Trail in the (west) Tucson Mountain District—an easy half-mile hike from the Signal Hill Picnic Area that leads to a fine collection of historic petroglyphs.

And, in early 2017, 16 members of the cast and crew of the national Broadway tour of “Dirty Dancing” (performing at the University of Arizona’s Centennial Hall) volunteered to help with a trail maintenance project on the Hugh Norris Trail in the west district of the Park. The group hiked 1.7-miles up the Sendero Esperanza Trail (on a chilly January morning!), then brushed the Hugh Norris Trail about a mile out to the east and west from the junction.