Camelback Mountain’s Echo Canyon Trail remains closed — with no reopening in sight

Camelback Mountain is one of Arizona’s most iconic attractions and famous hikes. The most popular trail, Echo Canyon, is closed — and hikers were not happy about it.

The trail closed in October after storms and rain led to safety concerns. Then, in mid-November, the city posted another notice. The trail remained closed indefinitely while officials addressed safety concerns, took steps to remove three “unstable boulders” and made other repairs.

Echo Canyon Trail and Camelback Mountain bring hundreds of thousands of hikers each year. Fall and winter are especially popular times for residents and visitors alike to hit the trails.

Jerry Van Gasse said he hikes Camelback just about everyday — when it’s open. He joined The Show to talk more about the ongoing closure.

Amber Victoria Singer

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KJZZ

Full conversation

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so first, just tell us real quickly, like, what do you do on Camelback? You hike it sometimes. You're often there with bananas, right?

JERRY VAN GASSE: I go by pretty much every morning when I'm in town and leave a box of bananas for the hikers because I found through the decades I've lived here that that's the most passionate group that I've come across in the city.

GILGER: Yeah. Yeah. What do you love about it there?

VAN GASSE: Just the, the history and the fact that people are getting outside and exercising.

GILGER: Yeah. OK. So what was your reaction when the city first closed it last month?

VAN GASSE: Well, you know, I understand we can't control Mother Nature, but we can control the aftermath. And No. 1 to me is communication. You know, until this week, we really haven't seen that since the Oct. 16 news release, and it was closed indefinitely.

GILGER: So we're talking about safety, repairs, right. Like these three boulders that the city's describing. Do you know which ones they're talking about?

VAN GASSE: Well, I haven't physically been up there, but I've seen photos of all of them.

GILGER: They're big.

VAN GASSE: They're huge. They're huge.

GILGER: And they're gonna try to remove them in this kind of interesting way. They're basically like drilling into them and injecting expanding grout is what it's called. And kind of separating them like that. Do you know how this process works?

VAN GASSE: No, but I kind of trust engineers that have used the process. In fact, we had our attorneys yesterday file a records request. We want to see the complete assessment of the trail.

GILGER: To make sure it's completely safe in other places as well?

VAN GASSE: Well, I mean, what they're looking at, what they've assessed and, you know, what we can expect in the future. We don't want to see it prematurely opened.

GILGER: OK, so concerns about safety from your end as well. I mean, has this been a concern in the past? Has anyone ever been injured in this way?

VAN GASSE: Well, no. What's amazing is, you know, now everybody's being directed over to Cholla Trail, which five years ago, after a devastating rainstorm, a couple weeks later, a boulder dislodged and crushed a hiker's leg. He was pinned for hours.

GILGER: My goodness. Yeah.

VAN GASSE: And they closed that trail for a year and a half to totally stabilize and everything. I mean, you can't, can't see everything.

GILGER: Yeah. And it is a mountain, right. It's not a manufactured environment. Tell us a little bit about just how difficult this trail is for folks who haven't been on it. I mean, I haven't been on it in a long time, but, I mean, it's like you're scrambling up literal cliffsides at some points of this trail.

VAN GASSE: Right, right. I mean, you know, in the fact the news media covers it extensively. The closures because of heat. It's not just the heat. It's, it's not a walk in the park, let's put it that way.

GILGER: It's very hard.

VAN GASSE: It's very hard.

GILGER: And do you feel like often folks, tourists, because this is such a famous location, do you think people go on this trail kind of unprepared for that at times?

VAN GASSE: Of course they do. It's on the bucket list.

GILGER: Right. And do you see folks out there? Do you help them? What are the conversations like?

VAN GASSE: No, I mean, the hikers, it's, it's a tight knit community. They help each other. They tell people, you may want to turn around now because it only gets harder.

GILGER: It only gets harder. I wonder, I mean, this is, like I said, a very popular time of year for folks to be hiking Camelback. Lots of people coming into town to do it and loving it. And then there are folks like you. And this hiking, you're talking about that hike it every single day.

I mean, are you just sort of sad that lots of people are missing out on this at this moment?

VAN GASSE: Well, I'm sad, but, you know, it's like I said, it's Mother Nature. It's gonna do what it wants to. And the people are flexible. We've got, you know, as a city, we're the envy of other cities, having mountains and as many trails as we do, right in the city.

GILGER: Yeah. We're seeing so much rain this week, and, you know, lots of storms have happened in the past. You often see the landscape of Camelback and these trails that are, you know, that have been carved into it change. And sometimes become dangerous because of rain. Do you think we'll see more of this, more erosion and maybe more loose boulders this week?

VAN GASSE: Oh, yeah. I mean, all I have to do is look at the Grand Canyon. It didn't get that way from, you know, subtle rains, nice gentle rains. Everything's pretty intense in Arizona.

GILGER: Yeah. So, Jerry, what would you like to see from the city going forward? As we don't have a date for this, but we kind of know at least what the challenges are, what they're trying to solve here on Camelback?

VAN GASSE: Well, I think No. 1 is they're finally reaching out and communicating, as there had been nothing until this week on their website or, you know, updates. I even have rangers ask me when I'm making my daily rounds, what's going on on Camelback.

GILGER: What do you tell them?

VAN GASSE: Well, I can't tell them much because there's no communication. That's sad.

GILGER: But now there's some more information?

VAN GASSE: Right. It's coming out now.

GILGER: OK. I want to ask you, before I let you go, Jerry, about another kind of famous or maybe infamous thing on Camelback Mountain at this time of year in particular, which is, of course, the Camelback Christmas tree, which has been very controversial over the years. Concerns about bringing a non-native tree up there or ornaments harming wildlife.

At one point the city had said, you can't have it up there, right. I mean, will we see the Christmas tree on the top of Camelback Mountain this year?

VAN GASSE: I'm pretty sure we will.

GILGER: And Santa?

VAN GASSE: Yeah. Nobody wants to be the Grinch.

GILGER: Nobody wants to be the Grinch. People love this though, right? People come up and expect it there at this time of year these days.

VAN GASSE: Well, it's become a tradition now. They're hard to eliminate.

GILGER: What does the hiking community have to do to make sure that that tree can go up there and follow all of the rules the city has in place?

VAN GASSE: I don't think they have to do anything.

GILGER: Yeah?

VAN GASSE: Nope.

GILGER: Birdseed, ornaments, things like that.

VAN GASSE: Right, right.