If you’re looking for a short-to-medium distance hike on the easy side with great saguaro cactus encounters, the The Black Rock Loop Trail at the Sweetwater Preserve may be just for you. In this article, I’ll break down the hike and tell you what to expect when you sit out on your hike.
Black Rock Loop Trail overview
The Black Rock Loop Trail is a 4.4 mile, easy loop trail with little elevation gain. The trail offers superb encounters with a thick forest of saguaro cactuses and beautiful views of the surrounding Tucson Mountains and the city of Tucson in the distance. The trail is very popular with trail runners and mountain bikers and could be a great location for photographers.
- Distance: 2.2 miles
- Elevation Gain: 285 feet
- Route Type: Loop
- Pets: Yes
- Difficulty: Easy
- Time needed: 1.5 to 2 hours
Getting to the trailhead
The trailhead is located in West Tucson at the Sweetwater Preserve Trailhead. If you are using Google Maps, you can try this address: 4001 N Tortolita Rd, Tucson, AZ 85745. As you approach the address, you’ll see a sign clearly marking the entrance to the trailhead area.
At the trailhead there will be a pretty decent sized parking lot. But note that this parking lot may fill up quickly. By the time that we finished up our hike, which was before 7 AM, the parking lot was filling up with lots of cars on a Saturday morning.
Trail conditions
The trail is in good condition and easy to follow throughout the hike.
There are some portions along the route that are a bit rocky so for that reason I think hiking boots are helpful to prevent a rolled ankle.
Also, while the trail is well marked with signs, this route consists of several trail junctions. So you’ll need to pay attention to where you are going. Basically just keep going straight or towards the right and you will be able to stay on the path you need to go.
Route description
The trail begins with a split and you can choose to go either way for the loop. We chose to go to the right which resulted in us going the opposite direction of most of the mountain bikers that day. So I would recommend this route so that you can see them approaching.
We started this hike just before sunrise near the time of a full moon so we were blessed with a fantastic view of the moon dipping below the mountains as we began.
This incredibly scenic portion of the hike would be perfect for a photographer looking for great shots of the moon in the morning. I seriously regretted not having my DSLR.
After about .2 miles into the hike your path will join with the other route of this loop. You are technically on the Saguaro Vista Trail at this point so just keep following that.
At about half a mile into the hike you will come across a crested saguaro. It is not the most impressive crested saguaro that I have seen but it is unique in that it has a weird fuzzy head. Pretty cool to see.
Keep on that path until about .8 miles and the route will start to get a little bit more meandering. The trail is also very up and down although there is not any major gains or losses in elevation.
Again, I can’t say it enough but this is a beautiful early morning hike.
And as I mentioned above, some portions are a little rocky so keep an eye on where you place your feet.
Once you get 1 mile into the hike it’s time to head north. This is where the Black Rock Loop truly starts.
On this portion of the hike, you’ll have some good views of the city of Tucson off in the distance.
You’ll also notice some homes on the nearby hills throughout this hike so it’s a weird feeling as you feel very close to civilization yet at the same time tucked away inside a beautiful nature preserve.
As you head south, at about 2.2 miles into the hike you will come across what I believe is Black Rock. I just assumed it had to be since it’s a pretty large outcropping but I did not see any official signs.
It looked like it would be fun to climb up on but since this is a nature preserve we stayed on the trail.
After passing up the rock, you’ll eventually come back to where you started on the Black Rock Loop.
But as you head back to where you started, you will then take a sharp right turn and head west way out of the way on the Sun Circle Loop.
There’s a canyon/wash to your right as you begin on this path and this is where we encountered a trio of deer. I saw reports of others spotting deer on this hike so keep your eyes open. You can see them in the photo below (near the center).
Once you finish the loop you will join back on the main trail that you came on.
Then finally, once you near the 4 mile marker you will make one more departure to your right as you finish up the last loop. You will be jumping on the Roller Coaster Trail which is not nearly as scary as it sounds. After you stroll through some more saguaros, you will be ready to complete the hike!
Final word
Overall, this was a cool trail but it was just too popular for mountain bikers for me to truly enjoy it. Most mountain bikers were great about giving us the right away which hikers have but honestly I just felt like I was kind of a nuisance to them because they outnumbered hikers by far. So while I think this is a trail worth checking out, I don’t think we will be making regular hikes here.