There are several ways to access the Willow Lake Canyon Loop trail that circles Willow Lake. This time, we parked in the Constellation Trail parking lot ($3/car fee) near the Phippen Museum.

The Constellation Loop is a 2.4 mile, 243' gain double loop that can be followed either right or left to eventually connect with the Ron James Trail from the Lost Wall Trail.

You will see a bench on Lost Wall that you need to climb above a bit to actually see the Ron James Trail. AllTrails is very useful for navigating here.

Follow the Ron James Trail to connect with the Willow Loop Trail.

The five of us who hiked this day had an unseasonably warm temperature and very little breeze. Ten days earlier, when I did Constellation and the full Willow Loop hike, we had beautiful clouds, a breeze and even snow on part of the trail!

Nevertheless, we enjoyed the camaraderie and nature’s wonderful sculptures and art work that is the dells, captured by Lin in the following photos:

If you hike the full Constellation / Willow Lake Loop, it is about 10 miles with about 1,000' of gain. On this day, however, we were time limited, so we hiked only about 4.7 miles of this beautiful and unique area of Arizona.