Bursera Trail - South Mountain Photoset • mt98dew • 2026-02-04 • HikeArizona.COM

Bursera Trail - South Mountain, AZ

	2026-02-04
	11 by mt98dew

Bursera Trail - South Mountain

Phoenix, AZ

Bursera Trail - South Mountain

Phoenix, AZ

Hiking	6.71 Miles	1,870 AEG

Hiking	6.71 Miles	2 Hrs 41 Mns	2.50 mph
	1,870 ft AEG

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Early morning hike at SoMo. Got started from the Bursera TH around 6:30. Still dark out, but you could see that daylight wasn’t far off. It’s been awhile since I’ve done all of Bursera. Pretty nice tread all the way up to the Bursera Canyon junction. Also, there are quite a few nice little “pullouts” where you can catch your breath and capture some pictures of the pending sunrise. After the Bursera Canyon juncture the trail gets a lot more rocky. The trail has a decent incline until it nears the bottom when it starts to flatten out and parallel the wash. Crossing the wash, I got my first look at the Gila Trail extension. It’s been there for a bit, but I have yet to check it out. Today, I headed on up to the National where the Bursera officially ends. Then took National over to Lost Ranch. Love the National for the most part, but there is a climb early on in this stretch that I really don’t care for.

Not bad this time of year, but it can really take it out of you in the summer. Took Lost Ranch down to Bursera. On the way down checked out a mine shaft that had been on my “to do list” for awhile. The shaft is just above the trail and the slope is very steep. Little tricky to reach it. Not huge, about 4 ft deep. Nothing like the cave near the base Lost Mine Ranch. Returned to the TH via the Bursera.

Nice morning for a hike. Temps in the upper 50’s. Very windy today. No wildlife. Encountered 4 hikers.

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