N Mountain Preserve off E Thunderbird Photoset • mt98dew • 2025-06-24 • HikeArizona.COM

N Mountain Preserve off E Thunderbird, AZ

	2025-06-24
	5 by mt98dew

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N Mountain Preserve off E Thunderbird

Phoenix, AZ

N Mountain Preserve off E Thunderbird

Phoenix, AZ

Hiking	5.20 Miles	750 AEG

Hiking	5.20 Miles	1 Hour 30 Mns	3.47 mph
	750 ft AEG

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Did some scrolling through HAZ, looking for a city trail I hadn’t done before. Came across this hike which kind of worked. I had never taken credit for this particular trail, but it turns out that this is very similar to “Pointe Tapatio Golf Course Loop #1”. There is a confined set of trails between Thunderbird, 7th and Cave Creek with three documented hikes (4 if you count this one) described in HAZ: Christiansen, Pointe Tapatio and the Lookout Connector. I’ve always enjoyed hiking in this area and there are a ton of use trails that “bleed” off the three described trails, so it was an easy call to revisit this area.

Started from the North Mountain Visitor Center around 5am. It’s kind of an antiquated system out there….had to wait for the Ranger to manually unlock the gate

. Went through the tunnel and then “picked my poison” for trails going in a clockwise direction. I stayed mainly to the well trodden path, following the Lookout Connector Trail (#25) until it crossed Thunderbird. I then followed one of the fainter trails for a short time until I climbed the slope of the hill that is central for the area and joined what I consider to be the Pointe Tapatio Trail. This trail is very well defined and swings around to the Christiansen Trail. I then took the Christiansen back towards the TH, but swung off to the south following one of many use trails that try to wrap around the small mountain adjacent to Points Tapatio Resort. Most of the spurs end up climbing this mountain, but I followed one of the trails that stayed along the fringes of the park. This takes you along the backyards of some of the homes in the area, but at 6am there wasn’t too much activity. Eventually connected back to the Christiansen with minimal elevation gained and headed back to the TH.

Really enjoyed this hike. Kind of nice to have two excuses to come back and hike this area. No wildlife. Encountered 6 bikers and 4 hikers. Temps were great in the 70’s.

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