After heavy rains or snow, Tucson can come alive with beautiful streams and waterfalls of precious flowing water. One of the best places to experience this is on the Lower Tanque Verde Falls Trail, located just east of Tucson in part of Coronado National Forest.
Lower Tanque Verde Falls Trail Overview
Lower Tanque Verde Falls Trail is one of the most popular trails in the Tucson area. Highlights on the trail include: Multiple waterfalls (including a signature waterfall at the end), scrambling/boulder hopping, and some nice views.
While this is a short hike if water levels are high enough, you will have to exert a good amount of effort to stay dry while route finding and this can turn into a bit of a taxing moderate hike.
- Distance: 2.6 miles
- Elevation Gain: 440 feet
- Route Type: Out and back
- Pets: Yes
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Time needed: 2 to 3 hours
Getting to the trailhead
The trailhead is located directly off of Redington Road, which is a very scenic drive that winds over a pass between the Santa Catalina and Rincon Mountains.
You can find the parking lot by inputting the following into your GPS:
Tanque Verde Falls Trail, Tucson, AZ 85748
You’ll transition from a paved to a dirt road and although 4×4 capabilities are not necessary (we saw a Mustang do just fine), I was glad to have it on that road.
You will see the parking lot on your left which has a decent amount of parking spaces. Some vehicles also parked on the side of the road so if you do not have a space you might consider that option.
This is a popular trail so expect the parking to be filled on nice weekends.
Trail conditions
The descent from the trailhead down into the canyon is pretty easy to follow.
There are a number of trail spurs that branch off so be on the lookout for those. The vegetation is a little more overgrown on the spurs so that is one way to know if you are on the right trail or not.
There is very little trail marked once you get to the bottom of the canyon. You will basically just be route finding as you head east in the creek bed.
Route description
The trail begins with you heading down into Tanque Verde Canyon.
This portion of the trail is pretty easy to follow and there are some nice views of the canyon and creek as you head down.
Some of the steps are pretty steep so be prepared for dealing with some large steps. The total descent is about 300 feet and half a mile long so you’ll knock it out pretty quick.
Once you get down to the floor of Tanque Verde Canyon, you’ll notice that the trail quickly disappears.
If there is recent traffic, you can probably follow some footsteps here and there and there are some remnants of a trail at times, but for the most part you will be route finding.
Tip: Start off by heading toward the left side of the creek bed.
The immediate area that you encounter when you enter the canyon is pretty beautiful. If you live in Tucson then you will really appreciate the stream of freshwater (if flowing).
This area is where most of the traffic was and it looked like a place where people were just relaxing in the water, playing with dogs, kids, etc.
So if you don’t want to venture all the way to the falls you can still enjoy yourself here.
The water level will likely dictate how difficult the route finding is.
We did this hike following a good amount of snow and so the water levels were pretty decent, which made the route finding moderately difficult.
We also tried to stay completely dry as we made our way through the creek bed which while technically possible with good waterproof hiking boots is very difficult (and probably impossible for most people).
Trying to stay completely dry here is also a bit dangerous.
That is because you will inevitably have to step/hop/leap onto slippery rocks and boulders which can result in some nasty falls.
I don’t care how good your grip is on your hiking boots, unless you have shoes made for wet rocks, you’ll likely be slipping around.
There is a reason there are warning signs at the top of the trailhead — all it takes is one slip and you’re bruised and battered.
When water levels are flowing, this hike would be much easier to do with water shoes (or better yet canyoneering shoes that stick).
By wading through the creek and getting wet, you could avoid a lot of the more difficult scrambling and the hike will likely be much less strenuous as well.
As you head east in the creek bed, you’ll be making your way up hill gradually. It’s probably about 130 feet in elevation gain so it is barely noticeable and hard to trace with all of the up-and-down scrambling.
Along the way you’ll encounter a number of smaller waterfalls.
A couple of these had a lot of water flowing and could be treacherous if you were to slip so you definitely want to exercise some caution here.
There are also some nice beach areas to relax on.
I wish I could provide you with a step-by-step route fighting guide but you’ll just have to figure it out as you go. Rarely is there one “wrong” side of the creek bed to be on.
The key is to be patient and to plan out as many steps in advance as you can. Sometimes it might lead you to a dead end and you will have to retrace your steps but that is just the nature of route finding.
At about 1.3 miles into the hike, you’ll finally see the waterfall. It looks like there are multiple levels to the fall and it was flowing pretty good when we visited.
If you are feeling adventurous you can scramble up just under the fall but obviously you need to be careful.
There are some ways to scramble beyond the top of the falls and possibly to continue toward the Upper Falls. However, we were hiking later in the day and decided not to attempt that. Perhaps another time.
One drawback to this trail is that there was a good amount of litter scattered throughout the creek. (Out of all the trails I’ve done in the Tucson area this one probably had the worst amount of trash.)
In addition, we saw multiple people urinating in the creek so I would be a little bit cautious about spending too much time in the water and definitely do not drink the water without treating it.
Final word
I really enjoyed this hike and it was a good work out with all of the scrambling. I would much rather just be okay with getting wet next time since that would make the hike much easier. I also think having some type of sticky grip canyoneering shoes could make this hike a much easier journey.