Why does a hiking app list a 1.6-mile trail with 387 feet of elevation gain at the mountain behind AJ's Fine Foods, complete with turn-by-turn directions off Black Cross Road, and yet turn away anyone who actually drives there expecting a trailhead?
The short answer is that it was never open in the way the directions imply.
Anyone following the old route still finds it: north on Pima Road about eight miles from the 101, west on Lone Mountain Road for three quarters of a mile, then south a quarter mile on Black Cross Road to where the pavement ends at the preserve boundary. That routing still circulates on hiking sites. What greets you now is a locked gate, and reviews on those same sites describe the disappointment of showing up to fencing where a trail used to be.
The mountain has an owner, and it isn't the public
The peak is called the H.B. Wallace Preserve, named for a longtime resident of the gated Sincuidados community who set up a conservation easement to keep the land in its natural state permanently. He handed stewardship to the Desert Foothills Land Trust, a nonprofit that manages preserved parcels across Cave Creek and Carefree. The gate isn't a change in ownership or a new no-trespassing sign someone put up out of spite. It's the terms of that original agreement holding.
Under those terms, the general public visits through scheduled, guided hikes rather than on its own. Desert Foothills Land Trust offers only six docent-guided hikes a year on this particular preserve, capped at 20 people per hike, and registration runs first come, first served through the Land Trust's own email list and events calendar. If you want in, you sign up before the dates post, not after.
Here's the part that explains why the mountain feels like it belongs to somebody else even though it names the whole surrounding area. Sincuidados, the community whose land borders the peak, describes its own network of trails winding through that same preserve, open to its residents any day they want a walk. The wildlife described on the community's own trail pages reads like a full Sonoran roll call: Harris's hawks, great horned owls, western screech owls, roadrunners, the occasional bobcat, coyote, or javelina, and snakes and lizards that include Gila monsters. For people living inside those gates, the mountain is a backyard amenity. For everyone else in the wider Lone Mountain and Scottsdale Road corridor, it's a landmark you look at and, six times a year if you're fast on the sign-up, a place you can actually walk.
That's the real story behind the fence. The mountain that gave this stretch of desert its name was never shared property in the way a public trailhead would be. Day to day it serves Sincuidados residents, and the wider neighborhood reaches it through the guided hikes Desert Foothills Land Trust schedules.
Getting on the list, and what's actually open right now
If you want to hike it rather than just look at it, the path is simple even if the odds of a spot aren't guaranteed. Desert Foothills Land Trust posts hike dates on its calendar throughout the year and sends notifications to anyone signed up for its email list. Spots for these guided hikes tend to move quickly once dates go live, so joining the list before you need it beats searching for a hike the week you want one.
None of this makes the corner of Scottsdale and Lone Mountain any less worth a stop on an ordinary evening. The small commercial node anchored by AJ's Fine Foods at the southeast corner of that intersection has been a fixture for the neighborhoods around it for years, and two names inside that plaza carry more history than the average shopping center stop.
Uncle Louie the Restaurant sits right there at 31313 N. Scottsdale Road, run for years by Louie and his wife Marie after the family-owned Italian spot relocated from the Terravita shopping center. It's still the kind of place where fresh fish comes out daily alongside New York-style pizza, and where regulars mention Louie and Marie checking on tables by name rather than by ticket number. Next door, Handel's Homemade Ice Cream holds down the corner for anyone who wants dessert without driving into Cave Creek or Carefree proper.
None of that changes what's happening on the mountain above them. But it's worth knowing both halves of this corner: the peak you can photograph any day of the year, and the guided hike you have to plan for months in advance to actually stand on top of.
If you're trying to get on Desert Foothills Land Trust's email list before the next round of hike dates posts, or you just want to know what else sits along this stretch of Scottsdale Road, our own guide to the Lone Mountain area has more detail on the surrounding subdivisions and how they connect to Cave Creek and North Scottsdale. Reach out to The Mohr Group and we're happy to point you toward the next hike registration window or the rest of what's worth knowing about this corner of the desert.
