https://www.phoenixmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/PHM0821EX08-1100x720.jpg

After battling 80-mile-per-hour winds on Humphreys Peak, evading a pack of charging javelinas in the Mazatzal Wilderness and hiking the Grand Canyon in a blizzard, John Heckenlaible decided it was time to give something back to the Arizona trails he loves. Joining the City of Phoenix parks stewardship program felt like a good way to do so. “I was climbing Piestewa Peak one day and saw two guys wearing bright yellow Phoenix Park Steward shirts,”...

https://www.phoenixmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-08-at-3.05.08-PM-1280x720.png

We’re pretty spoiled with our hiking bounty here in Arizona. Perhaps nobody knows this more intimately than lifelong hiker Mare Czinar, head of production at PHOENIX and our sister publication, Phoenix Home & Garden. In PHOENIX magazine The Hike Book (Cities West Media, $19.95), Czinar writes practically and poetically about 228 of her favorite Arizona trails, from easy urban treks to arduous high-country climbs. User-friendly symbols mark hikes for their suitability for children and animals,...

https://www.phoenixmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/LarryRowdyHumphreys-peak-960x720.jpg

Larry Ayala regards the moment five years ago when he slipped and shattered his ankle while hiking in the Superstition Wilderness as a stroke of luck. Laid up at home recovering and killing time on the Internet, he spotted a photo of an Australian cattle dog/German shepherd mix sitting on a ragged sofa in a California backyard. The post stated that if nobody wanted to adopt the young male canine, he’d be sent to a...

https://www.phoenixmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/PHM1119EX07-1280x720.jpg

Just Taylor doesn’t like to be told “You can’t.” After enduring two failed knee replacement surgeries and more than two years of mobility challenges and pain, the Phoenix hiker had to make a difficult decision. “My options were to fuse my leg straight, or do another revision and forever give up my active lifestyle, or elect amputation. I elected to amputate.” Last July, Taylor’s left leg was removed from above the knee. The process was...