Round Trip Distance: 0.8 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 1506 - 1569 feet
Cellphone: 3-5 bars
Time: 45 mins.
Trailhead: Waterfall Canyon
Fee: $7/vehicle
Attractions: petroglyphs
Petroglyph Plaza is located in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park near Phoenix, Arizona. The site includes numerous petroglyphs that are along side of the paved Waterfall Canyon trail.
From Waddell head west on W Olive Avenue for 2.95 miles. At that point W Olive becomes W White Tank Mountain Road. Continue for 2 miles and turn left onto Waterfall Canyon. After 0.43 more miles turn right into the parking area. For turn-by-turn directions enter ‘Waterfall Canyon Trail Parking’ into your driving app.
Waterfall Canyon is a barrier free trail that is naturally easy to hike.
Petroglyph Plaza is less than a half mile from the trailhead. Note that the paved surface of the trail doesn't extend into the plaza itself but the surface there is hard packed.
On the west side of the plaza there is a rocky outcrop that forms a nice wall that is covered with petroglyphs from one end to the other.
Some of the images display the type of fading that comes from touching the rock with your hands. The chemical process slowly dissolves the rock taking the images with it.
The images that are in places where they aren't likely to be touched still show up quite well.
There wasn't a kiosk at the plaza but from what we've read the petroglyphs are of the Western Archaic and Hohokam styles with some of them being as much as 10,000 years old but most 600-900 years.
There are also a few petroglyphs on boulders to the north of the plaza.
These are in an area that is closed to hiking so you will need a zoom lens for taking photos.
And for some of the petroglyphs even a good zoom lens isn't enough.
