Hopefully I got off on the right foot for the start of 2014 with a hike this past Saturday into the Fountain Hills Preserve.

Perhaps I should quick make a resolution to go on a hike in this new year – I could scratch at least one off my list…

If you’ve never been to the preserve, you really owe it to yourself to make it up there before the mercury climbs into the triple digits once again (yeah, we can brag about the weather all we want right now to our relatives back East, but not all of us can turn around and escape the blast oven that inevitably comes back each summer).

If you drive westward on Palisades Blvd. between, say, La Montana Drive and Golden Eagle Blvd., the McDowells loom high in your windshield.

There is a visible cut or scar across one of the slopes, and that rather wide cut is actually part of a trail within the preserve.

Imagine being up on that scar and looking back down Palisades toward the Fountain and beyond. Well, that visionary dream became a reality years ago when the town purchased a bunch of that land from the developer.

Today the preserve provides 740 acres of open space within the McDowells. Combined with Scottsdale’s mountain preserve and McDowell Mountain Regional Park to the north, these three areas provide more than 36,000 acres of contiguous Sonoran desert with limited and shared trail access.

Of course, that area will only grow into the future since the City of Scottsdale in late 2013 purchased more than 2,300 acres of state trust land to expand its preserve.

That purchase included some of the more highly visible peaks on our western horizon, and those volunteer stewards who are associated with the Sonoran Conservancy of Fountain Hills are all excited about the looming possibility of connecting the trails.

In fact, although some additional work needs to be done, the Fountain Hills side is willing and waiting for the connection.

As we traversed into the preserve, stewards pointed out roughly where Scottsdale’s Sunrise Trail and Fountain Hills’ Western Loop Trail would connect.

Saturday wasn’t the best day for picturesque photography scenes looking east over the Lower Verde Valley and toward Four Peaks – the sky was overcast and hazy – plus our reliable Fountain didn’t spout off at 10 a.m. for some reason.

Nonetheless, the worst day in the preserve is better than any other day on the couch.

It will be interesting to see what develops as the proposed re-zoning of Adero Canyon goes through the review process (you have to cross private land owned by MCO to get into the preserve’s southern end). The proposal could speed up development and ultimately provide unfettered public access to the preserve from that area near CopperWynd.

But until then, check out scfh.org and find out when some hikes are coming up. Volunteer stewards go into the preserve and lead hikes in surrounding areas.