Big Rock Canyon Circuit

BIG ROCK CANYON

Billion-year-old stone in Big Rock Canyon

Some trails have a way of rousing long buried memories.  Whether it’s the trail name, location or ambience that rustles the cranial recesses, the results can have surprising impacts on the hike experience. Consider the Big Rock Canyon trail in Prescott’s granite dells.

View of Watson Lake from Capts Trail

Its name conjures sweetness and an ear worm. Grown up kids of a certain age might remember a tooth-rotting confection called rock candy—word play on rock canyon. It was—and still is, if you can find it—pure sugar.  

The route crosses Boulder Creek

Rock candy Classic had no color or added flavor, just 100% nutritionally void carbohydrate manufactured to resemble quartz crystals. Sometimes, it came embedded on strings.

Hike begins on the Peavine NRT

While the treat was a step up from the chalky candy cigarettes and wax lips frequently bought together, it never made it off the dentist’s no-no list. Other than providing a brief energy rush, it has no redeeming qualities.

Peavine NRT passes by Watson Woods Riparian Preserve

There’s also a ditty about hiking in an imaginary paradise called Big Rock Candy Mountain (evidently located somewhere beyond the scope Google Maps), that can commandeer the brain with a continuous loop of “Where the lemonade springs and the bluebird sings in that Big Rock Candy Mountain.”

Even with a candy song banging around in the skull, the treat’s word-play trail is the opposite of empty calories. Replete in healthful elements all wrapped in a fantastical landscape of rocks of the volcanic sort, the trail delivers a steady stream of serotonin without the junk propellant. It could easily be the rock paradise imagined in the 1928 ballad.

View from Big Rock Canyon trail

Big Rock Canyon trail is located east of Watson Lake in the heart of a maze of routes collectively called the Storm Trails.  The City of Prescott owned property spans the other-worldly innards of the granite dells—a landscape of weathered billion-year-old granite formations.  Fractured and rounded by years of geological upheavals and exposure to the sculpting effects of weather, the dells are a cluster of nooks, crannies and blind curves interrupted by the course of Boulder Creek.  

Watson Lake seen from Capts Trail junction

There are several ways to get to Big Rock Canyon, but the quick way begins at the Peavine-Watson Woods trailhead with a mile-long hike on the Peavine National Recreation Trail. At the Capts Trail junction, located across from a scenic view of the lake, the route heads inland and is quickly absorbed into stony corridors. 

Big Rock Canyon Trail

Map signs are posted at all junctions. Here are the breadcrumbs for this hike:

• Peavine National Recreation Trail to Capts Trail.

• Capts Trail (sometimes called Captain’s Trail on apps) to Easter Island Trail

• Easter Island Trail to Big Rock Canyon Trail

• Big Rock Canyon Trail to Big Piney Trail

• Big Piney to Boulder Creek Trail

• Boulder Creek back to Peavine for the return leg.

Where the trails pass over slickrock, white dots painted on the russet stone show the way.  It’s very much a game of connect-the-dots and follow-the-signs. A hop over Boulder Creek signals the entry to the canyon. Once inside, the route ducks among vertical escarpments, oddly balanced rocks and contorted pillars.  Highpoint vistas showcase a fringe of mountains including iconic Granite Mountain, Glassford Hill and the peaks of Prescott National Forest.  The Storm Trails feel purpose-built for those with adventurous proclivities.

Map signs are posted at all trail junctions

Side trip on the Blaster Trail

Many are short loops and connectors, so there’s a natural magnetism for impulsive side trips.  Surprises emerge around every bend in the forms of oak thickets, quartz deposits, errant water birds and lakeside riparian vegetation.  North of Big Rock Canyon, there’s a trail called Candy. Really, there is.  It’s new, so trail signs may not yet be in place. But like a folksy ear worm, the urge to find it within this wilderness of rock might be hard to shake.

LENGTH: 8 miles roundtrip

RATING: moderate

ELEVATION: 5,166 – 5,340 feet

GETTING THERE:

Peavine-Watson Woods Riparian Preserve trailhead.

From State Route 169 in Prescott, turn right (north) on Prescott Lakes Pkwy and continue 1.7 miles to Sundog Ranch Road, turn right and go 0.2-mile  to Peavine Trail/Watson Woods Riparian Preserve parking area.

FEE: There’s a $3 per vehicle daily parking fee.

FACILITIES: restroom

INFO & MAPS:

prescott-az.gov/rec-services/recreation-areas-prescott/trails/mile-high-trail/