Backpacker (April 14, 2026) by Adam Roy

The southernmost mile of the Arizona Trail (AZT) is closed indefinitely as the federal government forges ahead with plans to build a new section of border wall at the trail’s southern terminus, the Arizona Trail Association (ATA) says.

In an update on its site on April 13, the ATA said that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had closed the trail from Monument 102, which marks the southern terminus of the AZT, to the trail’s junction with Joe’s Canyon at mile 1 due to “construction activities” associated with the wall in Coronado National Memorial, which will consist of two 30-foot-high barriers with a 150-foot-wide access road in between. The new closure is about a half-mile hike from the nearest parking area.

While DHS has not set a reopening date for the trail, the ATA said it would likely remain shuttered through the end of 2027.

The closure is the second to hit the AZT’s southern end in the past six months. In late October or early November 2025, contractors working for DHS fenced off the trail’s southern terminus monument with razor wire. In an email to Backpacker shortly after the closure, Matthew Nelson, the ATA’s executive director, wrote that the group had received “no notice whatsoever,” and only discovered the fencing after one of its volunteers happened to visit the southern terminus. At the time, Nelson said the group expected further closures might be necessary in August 2026, as border wall construction progressed.

While the southern mile of the AZT may yet reopen, the ATA doesn’t expect hikers to regain access to the monument, which Nelson called “a thing of the past.” The group says it is currently working with the National Park Service to establish a new southern terminus monument for the trail on Coronado Peak, which lies just less than a mile northwest of the old terminus and a one-mile hike from the current closure

The closure is unlikely to affect this spring’s northbound AZT thru-hikers, most of whom aim to finish their hikes in April before desert temperatures become unmanageable. However, southbound hikers, who often choose to begin their hikes in the fall, will now have to end their journeys a mile short of the border.

 

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