Rabbit Ears Loop with a Detour to Jacks Canyon Trailhead

The Skyliners hiked Rabbit Ears Loop on 19 March 2010. Rabbit Ears Loop is not a designated trail, but instead utilizes parts of Big Park Loop Trail and Courthouse Butte Loop Trail along with several social trails. As described, this hike starts at the Bell Rock Parking Area, and follows Bell Rock Path for about 0.4 miles, continues on Big Park Loop to Courthouse Butte Loop. Along the way, to the north, Courthouse Butte loomed starkly against a brilliant blue sky.

Courthouse Butte – Photograph taken 2 January 2010

We followed Courthouse Butte Loop Trail a little less that 0.1 before turning to the right at a wash marked by a tree to follow an ancient, unofficial trail (shown on some old maps as Rabbit Ears Loop) This social trail leads east along the south side of Munds Mountain to the Rabbit Ears formation. The trail then turns south and climbs to the backbone of a ridge where it intersects with another old trail once named Dairy Springs. In one direction, this old trail leads south to Jacks Canyon Trailhead. In the other direction leads west along the backbone of the ridge to the junction of Big Park Loop and Courthouse Butte Trails. We took the south fork to Jacks Canyon Trailhead. Then, after only a brief pause there, returned by the same path to the top of the ridge and followed the old Dairy Springs Trail west, completing the Rabbit Ears Loop.

The photograph below shows the tree that marks the turnoff from Courthouse Butte Loop Trail at the wash.

Tree marking turnoff from Courthouse Loop at a wash

The following photograph, also taken during a previous hike, shows George Everman standing in the wash and pointing out the social trail, which leaves the wash about twenty yards upstream from Courthouse Butte Loop, and leads up the left bank. This trail will eventually take us to the Rabbit Ears formation.

George pointing to the social trail

The trail is easy to follow, showing a few footprints and a lot of bicycle tracks. Continuing on the trail after leaving the wash for almost 0.25 miles, we came out on a smooth rock ledge from where we could see Rabbit Ears clearly in the distance.

Rabbit Ears formation in the distance

As noted, the trail, except for the bare rock surface across the ledge, was easy to follow. It seems to be heavily used by bikers and we just looked for the tire tracks and the occasional hiker's footprint in the dirt. About half a mile from where from where the trail started across the rock ledge we found an especially interesting old snag.

Old snag alongside the trail on the way to Rabbit Ears.

At a distance of about 0.3 miles from the Rabbit Ears (right), the trail veers a bit to the right (southeast and then south) and climbs to the top of a small ridge.

Shortly after topping the ridge, the trail forks; one branch leads off to the left (south) and the other goes straight ahead (west). (Note: On the old Arizona Topographic map that I use on my GPS, both branches are part of the Dairy Springs Trail.) Our return path to rejoin Big Park Loop Trail at the junction with Courthouse Butte Loop Trail lay straight ahead.

However, we knew that the left fork of the trail would take us down to the start of Jacks Canyon Trail, so as already noted, several of the group decided to hike down and back up before completing the Rabbit Ears Loop. The trail led steadily downhill, eventually passing thru a fence at an equestrian gate, continued down to cross the wash in Jacks Canyon and then through two more equestrian gates on either side of Jacks Canyon Road before reaching Jacks Canyon Trailhead (left), a short distance from the road.

Jacks Canyon Trail itself is accessed by passing through an equestrian gate just to the right of the sign. To access Rabbit Ears Loop Trail (unofficial name) one just turns left at the sign, rather than pass through the gate, follows a well-trodden path running parallel to the fence down to and across Jacks Canyon road and continues on the old Dairy Springs Trail to the top of the ridge. In other words, just retrace the way we had come.

The hike by, the route we took, to the Rabbit Ears formation is about 2.3 miles from the Bell Rock Parking Area. By contrast it is about 2.0 miles if one chose to hike in from Jacks Canyon Trailhead.

We did not get an acceptable group photograph for this hike. However the hikers included: Jan PreFontaine, the author, Betty Wolters, Donna Goodman, Miriam Sterling, Daisy Williams, Jim Manning, David Nelson, George Everman, Marvin Alt, Fran Lind, Lila Wright, Nancy Hawkins, Dolly Yapp, Akemi Tomioka, Harold Hawkins, Collene Maktenieks and one unnamed hiker.

The total distance for the hike as described in this report is about 8.0 miles including the trip to Jacks Canyon Trailhead. The highest elevation is 4705 feet and the total ascent is 1423 feet.

The GPS track for the hike is shown on the included map (below). The red track shows the route we took to the Rabbit Ears formation and on to Jacks Canyon Trailhead; the blue track shows the east-west section of the old Dairy Springs Trail that completes the Rabbit Ears Loop.