If you're looking to get outdoors this Thanksgiving weekend, Tucson is home to many spots to do just that.
We're lucky to have so many hikes with trailheads so near to us. While you could absolutely spend the whole day adventuring outside, these are hikes that you can do in few hours or less just to get everyone out and moving.
Remember to take water, dress accordingly and check for updated trail information before you go.
Happy trails!
Tumamoc Hill
The classic. Tumamoc Hill is a paved hike that rises about 700 feet in elevation and is a 3-mile roundtrip walk from the base to the top of the hill. Let us promise you, the Tucson views are incredible and worth your sweat (because you will sweat).
Parking for the hill is along Anklam Road — not in the parking lots of St. Mary's Hospital or the medical offices across the street. Pets are not allowed.
For more information, visit tumamoc.arizona.edu.
Yetman Trail to the stone house
For those of you who like to hike with a destination in mind, this trail is for you. A roughly 2-mile, roundtrip trek on the Yetman Trail in the Tucson Mountains will take you to the Bowen Homestead, a stone house built in the 1930s by Sherry Bowen (a onetime news editor for the Arizona Daily Star).
The stone walls and foundation are still in decent shape, but the house doesn't have a roof or windows. Once you arrive at the house, you can explore, peering out the glass-less windows into the desert beyond. It's a pretty incredible experience and a great place for a picnic.
You can get to Yetman Trail from the Camino de Oeste Trailhead off Speedway. Take Speedway out west until you get to Camino de Oeste and turn left there. When the pavement ends keep driving on the narrow dirt road until it dead ends at a small parking lot. That's where the trailhead starts. The trail to the stone house is pretty easy, but for a longer, more difficult hike, you could continue on beyond the stone house.
Read about our experience hiking this trail here.
Painted Hills Trails Park
Just 15 minutes from downtown, the Painted Hills Trail Park offers some of the desert's best — towering saguaros and sweeping views — without requiring you to leave civilization too far behind. The park, accessed at the trailhead at 3590 W. Anklam Road, has about 4 miles of trail to explore.
At the beginning of last year, we hiked about 2½ miles in the relatively new park, taking the trail that mostly ran parallel to Anklam Road (the Mosaic Trail). In total, this hike took us about 90 minutes, and we stopped a lot. The path was fairly easy and wide, although it did get rockier the farther in we climbed. This would be an easy hike to extend by hopping onto one of the other connecting trails.
For more about our experience with this trail, go here. For more information about the park, visit Pima County Natural Resources' Painted Hills Trails Park website.
Pima Canyon Trail
This busy, out-and-back trail can be accessed by heading north on First Avenue until it becomes Christie Drive. Follow that to Magee Road and turn right. The trail starts at Iris Dewhirst Pima Canyon Trailhead and heads into Pima Canyon, rewarding you with views of both the city and the Catalina Mountains.
Read about our experience hiking this trail here.
Mica View / Cactus Forest Trail
Go to the east end of Broadway for a 2-mile walk through Saguaro National Park East.
There's a pretty extensive trail system here, so you can easily adjust your hike to fit your family's needs. The loop is mostly flat and easy for kids to navigate, plus, you might see jackrabbits, deer and lizards as well as tons of cacti.
