Blaze your Way Pioneer Park’s Trails THROUGH

by Blake Herzog

Prescott’s Pioneer Park is a beehive of outdoor sports with a roller hockey rink, pickleball courts and multiuse fields for baseball, softball, soccer and football, plus the Kuebler Sports Complex.

But more than anything it’s a place to walk or ride.

The City has managed to fold 20 miles of trails into the park, a maze of singletrack and doubletrack paths through scrublands in the shadow of Granite Mountain, Thumb Butte and more majestic peaks to the west.

These can be combined into a seemingly infinite number of loops and throughways, many of them color-coded for easy navigation. You can find maps of these suggested loops at www.prescottaz.gov/recreation-area/ pioneer-park-trails.

The trails zigzag through grasses and past trees to provide a variety of environments and travel through different types of terrain, from broad, flat surfaces to hairpin twists along ridges, taking you to more forks than you thought possible in a relatively small area. It may sound like it would be easy to get lost here, but the absence of large-scale tree cover makes it relatively easy to spot landmarks and orient yourself in the right direction.

Also known as the Brownlow trail system, the Pioneer Park trails lie mostly west of Commerce Drive and south of Pioneer Parkway, though two tunnels under the parkway give access to sweeping paths without as many intersections for what some may find to be a cleaner experience.

The park has much to offer mountain bikers, hikers, horses and their riders throughout the year, with bright sun warming the winter landscape, green grass and wildflowers taking over in the spring and wide-open horizons coming to the fore in summer.

Since some parts of the trails lack shade, it’s a good idea to bring extra water and protection from the sun here in warmer weather.

Pioneer Park offers an easy-to-reach trail network where no two trips have to be the same, where every visit can be a new adventure as you string together different segments to create a unique experience. It’s time for you to try it out if you haven’t!