Discussion for Phoneline Trail—conditions, questions, and the long traverse that follows the old telegraph route above Sabino Creek.

❖ Phoneline Trail Page

A historic contour trail that winds above the canyon on exposed slopes, offering wide views, steady elevation, and long stretches without shade. The path teaches patience—its rise is slow, its line deliberate, and its history still felt in the stone underfoot.

Points of Interest

Blackett's Ridge Trail ▲ Coordinates

Phoneline Link Trail ▲ Coordinates

Historic Sabino Trail ▲ Coordinates

Popular Strava Routes

Phoneline Loop CCW

down the switchbackssss (descent)

Up the Switchbacks (ascent)

Misc

Phoneline follows the old telegraph corridor that once connected canyon operations. The route climbs and bends the way people used to move—slow, purposeful, and without shortcuts.  Because Phoneline stays high above Sabino Creek, the sound of water fades in and out. The canyon speaks differently from this elevation.

Most of Phoneline Trail can be full of shade a for a few hours after sunrise, and a few hours before sunset

Phoneline catches pockets of shade in the early morning and late afternoon, when the canyon walls shelter it from the sun

Phoneline Trail carries its history in its name. Long before hikers followed this contour above Sabino Creek, the route held the telegraph and phone lines that connected the canyon’s early operations. Rangers, workers, and maintenance crews used this line to move across the high slope, keeping the wires alive in a landscape that didn’t make anything easy.  The trail still follows that deliberate path the workers carved—contouring the canyon wall, bending with the stone, rising and falling where the land allowed and nowhere else.  It isn’t a trail shaped for comfort. It’s a trail shaped for purpose. The grade stays steady, the exposure constant. You feel the old logic in each turn: move above the floodplain, keep the line open, don’t argue with the canyon.  Most people walk Phoneline today for the view, not the story. But if you slow down, you can sense the age in it—the echo of a time when communication traveled by cable stretched across the desert, held up by human hands and stubborn will.