Honey Bee Canyon Petroglyphs Trail, AZ

From the parking lot for Honey Bee Canyon Park, go through the archway and make your way down to the ramada and restroom area. We did this hike in early April and there were lots of beautiful yellow wildflowers on either side of the trail as we made our way down. Just past the restrooms you will come to a fork in the trail. If you continue straight, you will just end up at the road. Instead, take a left and head further down. Shortly, you will come to a sign telling you to clean up after your pets and to respect the petroglyphs. There is a fork in the trail here. If you take the left fork you will enter the Honey Bee Canyon Loop which takes you around the park. The right fork is the Petroglyphs Trail, which is the topic of this post.


The trail is really just a dry wash (my map calls it Sausalito Creek). It's very sandy. The trail goes under a bridge here and continues into Honey Bee Canyon itself. Even though this trail is in a residential area, the walls of the canyon shield your view of civilization for the most part. There is plenty of the usual Sonoran Desert vegetation along the trail. When we hiked this in early April, there a sweet aroma in the air from one of the plants. I'm not sure which.

After about a mile of hiking, you will come to the petroglyphs on your left. They are right off the trail and about eye level, so they are hard to miss. If you continue past the petroglyphs you will shortly come to a dam. Apparently, it was placed there by sheepherders in the 1800s. This is great place to take a little break, eat some snacks, and hydrate. It's also the end of this trail description. You could continue past the dam, but we turned around at this point.

Check out the Official Route and Triplog.

Leave No Trace and +Add a Triplog after your hike to support this local community.

2017-04-07 discobob