Hamburg Trail via Ramsey Canyon
52 Hikes in 2025 - Hike #4
It was chillier this week, starting out from the parking lot at 28 degrees at 9 am. Since my step-mom was visiting, we wanted to make the most of our time together, so up and over the mountain as early as the preserve opened was on the agenda.
Hamburg Trail is a really fun choice for a lot of reasons. First off the Ramsey Canyon Preserve that we cut through to get to the trail head is also an extremely beautiful, well maintained wilderness area teeming with wildlife. The trail starts with stairs, a lot of stairs!!! However, there are also 9 benches set up along the way to the overlook, so you can take a break if you choose to. Another reason it is such a great area is that Hamburg trail intersects with many other trails in the area, which offers many diversified choices to continue toward a spring and campground, loop into a neighboring canyon, or climb toward crest trail and hit a peak (or two or three). For these reasons, I’m sure this trail will show up in future hikes as well.
As we followed the trail down into the valley, we caught our first glimpses of snow near the creek. There are several creek crossings on Hamburg trail, and it seemed with each little switch across the stream the scenery became more beautiful. Most of the path yielded a lot of lingering fall colors despite the fact that it was literally mid January. We continued following the creek for miles and at some points it was beautifully glimmering with icicles. I love any chance to capture ice and snow in Arizona. I took the time and climbed down into the creek bed to get a few photos.
It was pretty chilly as we began the hike, but as we kept moving and the sun kept rising, we warmed up. Before we reached the turn around point we had all 3 started to shed our hats and coats. Along the way we found a lot of evidence of the area’s use in the past. There were overturned mining carts, ore piles and other large mining equipment rusting on the side of the trail. We found evidence of a recent campsite with a hand made fire ring near the slight right we followed into Pat Scott Canyon. There we also found bear scat and possible paw prints. We made it back to the visitors center in about half the time it took us to hike out. When we returned, the volunteers at the center asked my mom to place a pin on their USA map, as no one had yet come to the preserve from Iowa this year. It was a great time spent together getting some exercise and taking in the smell of the pine needles.
Hope you enjoyed the post and happy hiking, until next time~ Kelly
I love it when I’m deep enough in the woods all I can smell is pine. Leave us a comment about your favorite smell in the mountains~