South Mountain Park and Preserve

Author's Comments

Sixteen thousand acres on the southern edge of a city that does not stop growing, and somehow the park still feels older than any of it. I drive up Summit Road in late January when the light is long and the saguaros throw shadows that go on for what feels like minutes, and I am reminded each time that this is not a scenic overlook with a desert attached. It is a desert with a city in the middle distance. Dobbins Lookout is the obvious destination and worth the drive, though the photograph from the top is harder than it looks. The Valley spreads out in a haze that the camera tends to flatten, and the cityscape reads better at the edge of golden hour than at full sun, when the light has warmth enough to give the buildings some weight against the mountains behind them. I have made better photographs from the pullouts on the way up than from the lookout itself. What keeps me coming back is lower down, on the trails that wind through the saguaro stands before the road begins to climb. Mid-morning in March, when the brittlebush is yellow and the saguaros are still holding the cool of the night, the light comes in sideways and the forest of them goes nearly Biblical. The petroglyphs are there if you know where to look. I will not tell you exactly where. Part of what this park asks of you is the willingness to walk and pay attention. Come in winter. Come early enough that the gates have only just opened. The desert here is most itself in the first hour.

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