Hole-in-the-Rock is a wind-and-water-carved opening in one of Papago Park's red sandstone buttes, reached by a short five-minute scramble from the parking area. The view looks west across the city and frames Camelback Mountain and the downtown skyline. It is one of the easiest sunset spots in Phoenix and gets busy in the cooler months — arrive a half-hour before the sun drops.
Archaeologists think the Hohokam, who farmed this stretch of the Salt River for nearly a thousand years before vanishing around 1450, used the hole as a solar calendar. Sunlight passing through the opening tracks the summer and winter solstices on the back wall. The trail is short but exposed, with no shade and no railings near the top.