Canyon de Chelly National Monument
Sandstone walls, ancestral sites, farms, homes, orchards, and Diné memory make this jointly managed canyon a living cultural landscape.
Places and wildlife — page 36
Browse Explore’s field guide to destinations, wildlife, art, and the natural world. Open a discovery for practical details and background.
Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument
A cinder cone, lava flows, ponderosa forest, Indigenous history, and ecological recovery show that an eruption is an event with centuries of consequences.
Vermilion Cliffs National Monument
Vast sandstone escarpments, slot canyons, desert mesas, and California condor habitat demand route-specific planning in a largely roadless monument.
Kartchner Caverns State Park
Guided rooms of growing formations, tight climate controls, bat ecology, and a carefully engineered entrance demonstrate how public access can coexist with cave conservation.
Lost Dutchman State Park
Desert trails rise beneath a monumental volcanic skyline where geology, bloom seasons, heat, and Tonto National Forest access matter more than a lost-mine legend.
Slide Rock State Park
Oak Creek’s natural sandstone chute, historic apple orchards, canyon geology, and intense summer demand make this both a swimming place and a preserved agricultural landscape.
Red Rock State Park
Riparian habitat, environmental education, creek loops, and unobstructed views of Cathedral Rock offer a conservation-focused alternative to Sedona’s busiest trailheads.
Catalina State Park
Saguaro forest, seasonal washes, archaeology, equestrian routes, and mountain trails begin at the edge of Tucson and climb toward sky-island ecosystems.
Kofa National Wildlife Refuge
Bighorn sheep habitat, palm canyons, broad valleys, mines, and volcanic ranges reward self-reliance in one of western Arizona’s least serviced public landscapes.
Bright Angel Trail
Historic switchbacks, shaded rest houses, water uncertainty, and enormous elevation change make this beautiful corridor a serious reverse-mountain hike.
South Kaibab Trail
An exposed South Rim descent follows a narrow ridge past Ooh Aah Point and Cedar Ridge, offering exceptional geology with almost no shade or water.
Echo Canyon Trail on Camelback Mountain
Railings, boulder steps, desert exposure, and rapid elevation gain climb Camelback Mountain directly above central Phoenix.
Piestewa Peak Summit Trail
A relentlessly steep urban trail climbs quartz-rich slopes to a compact summit with broad city and mountain views.
Devil’s Bridge Trail
A broad natural arch above Sedona draws heavy traffic, rough-road decisions, exposed queues, and several possible trailhead approaches.
Cathedral Rock Trail
Steep slickrock, route markers, hand-and-foot moves, and a high saddle make Cathedral Rock one of Sedona’s most concentrated climbs.
The Wave at Coyote Buttes North
Cross-bedded Navajo Sandstone folds into extraordinary curves within permit-controlled backcountry that has no constructed trail.
Arizona National Scenic Trail
A continuous foot, horse, and bike route links deserts, sky islands, canyons, forests, communities, and the Grand Canyon from Mexico to Utah.
Havasu Falls Trail
A long desert descent reaches Supai and travertine-blue waterfalls on Havasupai land, where every visit is governed by tribal permits and community rules.
Antelope Canyon
Narrow light-filled passages on Navajo land reveal cross-bedding, flash-flood erosion, and a tightly managed visitor experience.
Horseshoe Bend
A short exposed walk reaches a sweeping Colorado River meander where geology, heat, crowd flow, and cliff safety matter as much as the famous view.
Meteor Crater
A privately operated visitor center and rim viewpoints explain a 50,000-year-old meteorite impact, planetary geology, and the history of proving the crater’s origin.
Grand Canyon Skywalk
A glass horseshoe extending from Eagle Point is one component of the tribally operated Grand Canyon West experience, with its own transport and photography rules.
Desert Botanical Garden
Five thematic trails connect Sonoran Desert ecology, global succulent diversity, conservation research, seasonal bloom, art, and practical water-wise design.
Boyce Thompson Arboretum
Desert plants from around the world grow beneath Picketpost Mountain along shaded creek, cactus, heritage-tree, and high-desert trails.
Tucson Botanical Gardens
Seventeen themed gardens, desert plants, barrio history, butterflies, art, and shade reward careful observation on a five-acre Tucson site.
Tohono Chul
Native gardens, desert trails, galleries, a bistro, and cultural programs turn forty-nine Tucson acres into a patient study of place.
Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix
Pond, waterfall, stone, tea garden, fish, pruning, and borrowed skyline show how Japanese garden principles were adapted through Phoenix–Himeji friendship.
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
Zoo, botanical garden, aquarium, natural-history museum, and art gallery combine around Sonoran Desert habitats west of Tucson.
Phoenix Zoo
Four major trails, Arizona species, elephants, primates, children’s areas, and conservation work fill a large outdoor zoo beside red sandstone buttes.
Reid Park Zoo
Elephants, giraffes, lions, South American species, conservation programs, and a new Asia expansion fit into a manageable city-park campus.
Bearizona Wildlife Park
A drive-through forest and walk-through Fort Bearizona present bears, wolves, bison, otters, raptors, and conservation programs near Williams.
OdySea Aquarium
Sharks, rays, penguins, sea turtles, freshwater ecosystems, and immersive viewing connect global waters inside a large Scottsdale attraction complex.
Cactus Wren
Arizona’s brash desert wren advertises itself from cholla with bold white brows, spotted plumage, and a mechanical chugging song.
Abert’s Towhee
A secretive lower-desert towhee scratches beneath mesquite, revealing a black face, warm undertail, and brief accelerating song.
Kaibab Squirrel
A white flag of a tail and tufted ears identify this squirrel found naturally only in the Kaibab Plateau’s ponderosa forest.
Mount Graham Red Squirrel
This endangered high-elevation squirrel survives in one isolated Arizona mountain forest, storing conifer cones in cool, damp middens.
Arizona Gray Squirrel
A broad pale-edged tail and warm reddish back distinguish this large squirrel of Arizona’s oak-lined mountain canyons.
Arizona Ridge-nosed Rattlesnake
Arizona’s small mountain rattlesnake favors cool, rocky pine-oak canyons and shows pale facial stripes across an upturned snout.
Apache Trout
Arizona’s native golden trout survives through tribal and agency restoration in cold White Mountain headwaters with stream-specific fishing rules.
Gila Topminnow
This tiny livebearing fish persists in warm desert springs and cienegas where introduced mosquitofish, drought, and altered flows threaten recovery.
Little Colorado Spinedace
A subtle silvery minnow carries an outsized conservation story within the pools and connected flows of northern Arizona’s Little Colorado basin.
Two-tailed Swallowtail
Arizona’s enormous yellow state butterfly patrols canyon streams and gardens, flashing black tiger stripes and two tails on each hindwing.
Arizona Giant Skipper
A brief monsoon-season flight reveals this robust agave specialist, whose hidden larvae spend most of their lives inside host plants.
Saguaro
The Sonoran Desert’s towering column stores rain in pleated stems, shelters cavity nesters, and feeds wildlife with crown flowers and red fruit.
Arizona Cliffrose
This endangered evergreen shrub survives on unusual pale mineral soils, opening creamy flowers before producing long, feathery seed plumes.
Nichol’s Turk’s Head Cactus
A low blue-green barrel armed with heavy curved spines hides among southern Arizona limestone and blooms pink after warm-season rain.
Blue Palo Verde
Arizona’s state tree sheds tiny leaves during drought, photosynthesizes through blue-green bark, and erupts in pollinator-rich yellow spring bloom.
Arizona Sycamore
Mottled white trunks illuminate rocky canyon streams where this broad-crowned southwestern tree provides shade, cavities, and riparian structure.