A letter from a local
A mile high, granite everywhere.
The Granite Dells look invented — orange stone eggs stacked around two lakes, ten minutes from the courthouse square, with slabby routes and bouldering all through them. Watson Lake at sunrise, kayak between the domes, is the town's postcard and my Tuesday.
The Prescott Circle Trail runs 57 miles around the whole city, Thumb Butte watches over the lunch hikes, and Granite Mountain's wilderness routes are twenty minutes out. At 5,400 feet, summers run ten degrees cooler than Phoenix and the ponderosas smell like butterscotch in the sun.
Arizona's old territorial capital: Whiskey Row bars, courthouse lawn concerts, retirees and river guides sharing the same trailheads. It's the calm version of the Arizona outdoors.
— Wes