Willow Lake Loop: The Quiet Half of the Granite Dells

Watson Lake gets the photographs. Willow Lake, immediately north of it, has the same granite, a longer loop around it and a fraction of the people. If you have seen the Dells on a postcard and arrived to find the car park full, this is where to go instead.

The loop at a glance

The section that catches people out

The south and east sides are an ordinary lakeside path. The north and west sides are different: the route crosses open granite where there is no worn tread to follow, and the way is marked with cairns and paint blobs on the rock. In good light it is obvious. In flat light, or when you are talking rather than looking, it is very easy to walk off the line and end up scrambling.

Nothing here is dangerous and the lake is always on one side of you, so the correction is short. But budget for it, and do not assume 5.4 miles of lake loop means 5.4 miles of path.

The water level moves

Willow is shallow, and its level swings hard between a wet spring and a dry autumn. In low years the water retreats a long way from the shoreline drawn on the map, and stretches of the loop cross flats that are lake bed for part of the year. That is normal. It does mean the walk looks quite different depending on when you come, and that photographs from a wet April are not what you will find in October.

Swimming is prohibited, here and at all the other lakes, which is the single fact most visitors get wrong about Prescott. The full comparison of the five is in Prescott’s five lakes, and the direct Watson-versus-Willow question is settled in Watson or Willow.

When to go

Spring and autumn are best. Summer afternoons on open granite are punishing and there is very little shade anywhere on the loop. Winter is fine and often empty.

The $5 city fee covers Watson, Goldwater, the Peavine and the Constellation Trails on the same day, so a single Wednesday, when it is free anyway, can take in several. Everything you might pay for in the area is listed in what a Prescott trip costs.