Arizona Trail: 800 Miles, 43 Passages, One Canyon

The Arizona Trail began as a teacher's summer break. School let out in Flagstaff in May of 1985; by August, Dale Shewalter had walked from Nogales to the Utah line — 25-some miles a day — to see whether one foot trail could run the full height of the state.

It could. The route he sketched became the Arizona Trail: 800 miles from the border fence to the Utah line, designated a National Scenic Trail by Congress in 2009 and physically finished in 2011, when the last gap in the tread was closed along the Gila River. Shewalter died in January 2010, a year before that final section went in. Arizona hikers still call him the father of the trail.

Passages: 43, numbered south to north, averaging about 19 miles each
Official length: 800 miles, Mexico border to Utah border (Arizona Trail Association figure)
Average thru-hike: 43 days by the Forest Service's count (one per passage, in theory)
Grand Canyon: the only National Scenic Trail that crosses it, rim to rim
Scouted: 1985, on foot, by Flagstaff schoolteacher Dale Shewalter
Designated: National Scenic Trail in 2009; final gap closed along the Gila River in 2011
Water: planned around the crowd-updated AZT Water Report, not around mileage

Nogales to Utah, one passage at a time

The trail is organized into 43 passages, averaging about nineteen miles apiece, and the numbering tells the story south to north. Passage 1 leaves the border in the Huachuca Mountains. The first dozen climb in and out of southern Arizona's sky islands, where saguaro country runs up against pine forest in the span of an afternoon. The middle third crosses Sonoran desert, then climbs the Mogollon Rim into the largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest on the continent. Passage 38 is the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon. Passage 43 ends at Stateline Campground, where the red cliffs of Utah take over. Every one of them is traceable on the Arizona National Scenic Trail page.

The canyon is the hinge of the whole line, and the reason the map below deserves a slow spin. Eleven trails hold National Scenic Trail status in the United States; this is the only one that crosses the Grand Canyon. Northbounders walk off the South Rim on the South Kaibab Trail, give up close to 4,800 feet of elevation on the way to the Colorado River, cross a footbridge, and spend the better part of a day buying back nearly 5,700 on the North Kaibab. When the line reaches the top third of the state, it drops. The plunge reads like a data error. It isn't.

The Arizona Trail, traced end to end — follow the moving dot, or drag to explore the terrain yourself (two-finger pan on touch).

The daily math is water

Between landmarks, the arithmetic that actually governs an Arizona Trail day is water. Hikers plan segments around the AZT Water Report, a ledger updated by whoever walked through last: this tank full, that spring down to a trickle. The Arizona Trail Association has also installed rainwater collectors in the driest stretches since 2019. Everything else is seasonal creeks, springs, and stock tanks, which means you will, at some point, filter water a cow has been standing in.

None of this is a flaw in the route. An 800-mile line across Arizona has to connect the water that actually exists, and carry capacity ends up mattering more than base weight. Most hikers size their bottles to the next dry stretch, not to a rule of thumb.

How long does the Arizona Trail take?

The Forest Service puts the average thru-hike at 43 days and calls 60 common. The coincidence is tidy, 43 passages and 43 days, though nobody actually walks it one passage per day.

The variables are heat in the south, lingering snow on the Kaibab Plateau, and how many rest days Pine and Flagstaff talk you into.

When to start, and which way to walk

Northbound, start between mid-February and mid-May; March is the most common month. Southbound, leave the Utah border between mid-September and mid-November, most often in October.

Northbounders race two clocks at once: the Sonoran Desert heats up behind them while snow hangs on ahead above 8,000 feet. Southbounders run the problem in reverse, dropping out of the high country before it freezes and finishing in the desert after the summer heat breaks.

One dated caveat for fall 2026: a section of the North Kaibab Trail closes on October 15, 2026 for Transcanyon Waterline construction, and the National Park Service expects the closure to hold into early 2027 with no rim-to-rim detour available. Southbounders starting late in the 2026 window should read the park's closure notice before building a schedule around the crossing.

Do you need a permit for the Arizona Trail?

No. There is no permit for the trail itself; you need paperwork only where the route crosses land that requires it for overnight camping, and the Arizona Trail Association keeps the current list.

The two that matter to most thru-hikers: any night below the rim in the Grand Canyon requires a backcountry permit from the park, which in recent spring seasons has held dedicated AZT thru-hiker sites at Bright Angel Campground, and camping in Saguaro National Park's Rincon high country requires a park permit, with an AZT-specific version available during thru-hiker season up to the day you camp. The trail also carries its own 15-foot right-of-way across roughly 91 miles of State Trust Land, so no state recreation permit is needed as long as you stay on the tread.

After the Utah line

This is trail nine of fourteen; the rest of the series is collected in the Outdoors Journal. If the water math here holds your attention, the Pacific Crest Trail piece covers the same problem stretched across a snowpack clock, and the Continental Divide Trail article starts an argument about what a trail even is. This one settles it by example.

When a passage of your own starts calling, the Arizona index on Outdoors puts every trail in the state on one map.

Hero photograph: A hiker on the Arizona National Scenic Trail by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management, public domain.

Sources

Hero photograph: A hiker among the saguaros on a Sonoran Desert passage of the Arizona Trail. by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management, licensed under Public domain.