This was my first experience at North Mountain and it could have been better. We recently relocated to Phoenix and decided to venture to North Mountain with our 2 dogs for a nice hike one evening.
Perhaps we didn't choose the best trailhead. I'm definitely willing to go back and give it another shot since many other people in the area love it here. We parked at the main entrance right off 7th at Peoria. Having lived in the midwest for a while (and longing for mountains and open sky of the west) we were excited to have a potential hiking spot so nearby.
I'm not exactly sure what trail we were on but we headed north....north in to a sea of broken glass. Broken glass everywhere! I was amazed at how much there was and wondered where it all could have come from. We had to be very careful navigating through it with our dogs. However sparkly and shimmery the glass was in the setting sunlight, "plentiful shards of glass" is not something I look for in a good hike.
Now I will say that as we headed north it got much better. Eventually we landed upon another trailhead. After looking at a map we determined it was one off N Central. I think next time we'll start from there and hopefully can add another star or two to this review.