Tempe, A City By The Lake

(cheerful lively music) - [Narrator] They've written songs about the city by the Bay, and while Arizona doesn't have a bay, we do have a city by the lake.

Tempe, Arizona is sometimes known as the community that reinvented itself, going from being known as just the college town to featuring the second most-visited public attraction next to the Grand Canyon.

And all it did was just add water.

Okay, so maybe it did a little more than that.

And if you think water is some new attraction to the city, think again.

Established in 1871, when the Salt River was a flowing stream, and sometimes an obstacle to travel, early settlers counted on Hayden's Ferry to cross the rapids on the Salt River during flood season.

Today, Tempe Town Lake has old and new bridges to get people across the lake.

And one look at the changing skyline, it's easy to see that Tempe has been in constant growth mode.

The city exudes a youthful, energetic vibe that also offers beautiful landscapes and cosmopolitan city scapes, forward thinking, but also recreationally focused.

This city with a mountain smack dab in the middle of town is a city visibly on the rise.

Today we explore the trails and waterways of Tempe, a city by the lake.

(air whooshing) (dirt scattering) (lively music) - [Spokesperson 1] "Trail Mix'd" is made possible in part by a gift from Sue and Bill Ahearn.

Additional support provided by.

- [Spokesperson 2] SRP is staying ahead of the valley's growing energy needs.

We're investing in one of the country's largest solar battery storage projects to deliver power that's as reliable as it is sustainable.

- [Spokesperson 3] Albertsons, Safeway Pharmacies, and Valley Nonprofit Mission of Mercy are proud to support cancer awareness.

They encourage you to talk to your doctor, get recommended screenings, and don't forget your flu vaccine.

More information at Albertsons or safeway.com.

- [Spokesperson 4] Whitfill Nursery proud to support eight Arizona PBS, a valley tradition since 1946.

Over 200 acres of Arizona-grown trees, citrus, and palms, complete custom design and installation, and Whitfill Nursery still does the digging, whitfillnursery.com - [Spokesperson 1] And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(lively upbeat music) - I'm Ike Easley, and today all trails lead to Tempe.

Home to Arizona State University Sun Devils.

Tempe goes way beyond your typical college town.

Sure, it has eclectic Mill Avenue where students and locals hang out, but there's so much more to explore.

Today we're checking out the diverse recreation opportunities in this urban desert.

Trails that will take you around the lake in the middle of the city, to blazing our own trail on the water.

From boats to bikes, we're just trying out all modes of transportation today.

And of course, we're hiking to the top of a mountain with a special guest.

Are you ready?

Oh, you know, I'm ready.

"Trail Mix'd" starts right now.

Every state in the union has a unique culture and vibe that's reflected in the streets of its communities.

Miami has Ocean Drive, New Orleans has Bourbon Street, and Tempe has Mill Avenue.

Within a mile-radius, you can find a plethora of things to see, do, drink, and eat.

There's also public art on Mill Avenue.

As you take a stroll, you can admire some unique and truly funky pieces.

A desert scene in bright, fresh colors, on a detailed structure just pops, and I really think reflects the vibrant spirit of youth in this city.

Mill Avenue is also a great place to just sit down outside, have a cup of coffee or a meal, or just watch the people go by.

And for those of us who thrive in the outdoors, there's a lake to row in, pathways and trails to bike or hike.

And then you've also got "A" mountain.

Yes, that, "A" mountain, smack dab in the middle of the city.

(cheerful music) How many cities do you know have a mountain like this that you can hike in the heart of town?

"A" mountain is sort of a monument for those who live in Tempe, and a popular urban hiking destination.

It's main access point is right off Mill Avenue.

It's not a long climb to the top but you can head up and back in less than an hour, making it a popular and easy way to enjoy the outdoors.

In fact, you never know who you'll bump into along the way.

- Mayor Woods, what's going on?

- Hey.

- How ya doing?

- I'm good, good to see ya!

- Chilling, chilling, what brings you out to the trail?

- Oh, well, I mean, the fact of the matter is Arizona has so much natural scenic beauty.

Of course, we've got "A" mountain right here in the city of Tempe.

And honestly, as mayor, you spend a lot of time behind your desk.

And so from my perspective, anytime I have the opportunity to get out and walk around, and kind of stretch my legs and get in some exercise, but also take in all of this natural landscape, why would I not take that opportunity?

- [Ike] Mayor Woods is right.

Why wouldn't you take advantage of this short getaway that's just steps away from the busy city?

- It's an incredible city with such a rich amount of history and diversity.

I mean, honestly, with Arizona State University, the largest public university in the country and the most innovative university several years running now, and all the great work going on in the city of Tempe, the economic development, the transportation advancements, there's just so many good things going on here, that I know everyone wants to be a part of.

From Tempe residents, to Arizona residents, to people nationally.

Maricopa County is the fastest-growing county population-wise in the entire country.

And a lot of those people are moving to Tempe because the secret is out.

They know that Tempe is the place to be.

- [Ike] Officially named Hayden Butte Preserve, the mountain is partially located on the ASU campus.

It's not only near and dear to the hearts of students and alum, it's also culturally significant.

- Not only is it something that's been around forever, from the standpoint that so many Tempe residents identify with it and they understand that it's a historical site, but we have great relationships with our four Southern tribes.

So we try to make sure that whatever we're doing with this mountain, we not only allow people the chance to recreate and enjoy themselves outside, but we're also doing it in a respectful way to the tribes that are still here.

And frankly, whose land we're still currently on.

- [Ike] The mountain has roughly 500 petroglyphs made by the Hohokam people, who lived and thrived in this area between 750 and 1450 AD.

(lively upbeat music) - So the "A" Mountain Challenge was actually something that was started by the Downtown Tempe Authority, the enhanced services district that really kind of watches over our entire downtown.

But it was basically a way to get people to get out, and walk, and enjoy the natural beauty of the city of Tempe, and of the state of Arizona.

But it's basically during the months of March and April, people just sort of walk up and down the mountain as many times as they possibly can for those couple of months.

And so, really you're supposed to tag yourself on social media and keep track of as many trips as you do up and down the mountain.

And of course it's a challenge.

So you have to outdo the next person.

So if I get more trips than you, I'm the winner.

- And if the challenge isn't calling your name, these views from the top will.

You can even do some plane-spotting as you look out toward the airport.

The past few days, I've been rowing around Tempe, I've been biking, now I'm hiking.

What makes Tempe such an active city?

- Well, I think it's just the diversity of the population here, frankly.

You've got everyone from very young students, whatever, to kids in college, all the way to very active seniors.

And so, I mean, I see them doing everything.

I mean, biking, I was in the Tour de Tempe a couple of weeks ago, 10 miles with a whole bunch of residents.

We have 800 people signed up for that ride.

I see people all the time hiking up "A" mountain, doing the "A" mountain challenge.

And so we're just a very diverse, eclectic, active city.

And one of the things that we like to do is get out and move.

- The top of the mountain is definitely calling my name today.

You gotta get back to work?

- Apparently so.

Ya know, as much as I love being out here and enjoying the fresh air, and just sort of catching up, meetings call, I guess work calls.

So I'm gonna probably head on back to the office and knock out a couple more meetings, but I'll probably be back out here tomorrow.

- I'm gonna run this trail for you.

Sounds good, appreciate it, thank you.

- Good to see you, brother.

- You too.

- All right!

"A" Mountain is a site of preservation and pride.

Oh, and hey, Mayor Woods?

You can hike with Ike any day anytime.

(lively upbeat music continues) Woo, yes sir, that's for you, Mayor Woods, we did it, baby!

Ha ha, I love it.

Hey, we've all been there.

We've all had to find the right time to speed up and pass a slower-moving car on the road.

It actually works the same way when you're hiking.

If you come up on a hiker or a group moving more slowly than you, it's okay to pass, but do it politely.

Announce yourself in a friendly way as you approach.

A simple hello or, "How you doing?"

is always a good choice.

How ya doing?

Hey hey, on your left!

Have a great day, y'all, appreciate it.

(bell dinging) It's rude to push by, especially in the narrow areas of the pathway where there's thick brush or cacti.

Man, get out the way, come on.

- Come on!

(buzzer buzzing) - If the trail is especially narrow, ask if you can pass at a convenient spot where it's wider.

Yo, may I pass you at top of the hill, please?

- Yeah, yeah, no problem.

- All right, all right, hey, good workout there.

- Yeah, thanks, you too.

(bell dinging) - [Ike] On the other hand, be aware if your hiking more slowly than those behind you.

It's a good idea to offer to let them pass, even if they don't ask.

You'll enjoy the hike more without someone tailgating you, and they will too.

So now you're in the know, another hiking etiquette tip for you when you hike with Ike.

(carefree music) The city of Tempe is known as the home of Arizona State University.

However, the city's main attraction is Tempe Town Lake.

- So it's actually a damned-up section of the Salt River.

Some ASU students back in the 1970s thought wouldn't it be great if we had this lake that was kind of in the center of downtown, and it could be this great place to walk, and recreate, and just have a nice center of town.

And then from that, it's turned into what it is today.

And it's just a great place to get outside and kind of shut off the outside world for a couple hours.

- [Ike] The paved Rio Salado Pathway runs along both banks of the Salt River in Tempe.

The lake has 12-foot concrete paths on each side of the lake.

The north and south shores of the lake connected by the beautiful Mill Avenue Bridge and the Rural Road Bridge.

The scenic waterfront property with high-rise windows gleaming in the sun on the south end of the lake.

Tempe Town Lake is Arizona's second-most visited public attraction.

If you're looking to take a scenic walk, jog, or bike ride, it's the place to go.

But a lot of people also play on the two-and-a-half-mile lake.

- [Emily] You can come out here, you can dragon boat, you can outrig or canoe, you can kayak, stand up paddle board, you can sail.

Just so many different opportunities that you can do on the lake.

- [Ike] Tempe Town Lake, and everything surrounding it, gives meaning to the words, "Where there's water, there's life."

(lively cheerful music) While the most scenic areas in Tempe's Sonora and Desert Parks are best seen by mountain bike, Tempe Town Lake provides an extensive network of pleasant and scenic bike trails throughout the city.

- Tempe's a great bike city.

I would definitely say we've been building upon creating a multimodal city for decades.

We have the first bike plan in the state.

We have some of the first bike lanes in the state.

And over the last 25 years, we've really built infrastructure citywide, from our street scapes to our pathways, that you see here.

That's supporting people getting out on their bikes all over the city.

- [Ike] The Tempe Town Lake Loop is 7.4 miles out and back.

It's generally considered an easy route that could be completed in just about two hours.

Eric Iwersen is the current deputy engineering and transportation director, and he rides the loop every day to work.

- It connects to upstream and downstream where we have no lake, but we have Riparian.

It is a river system through the valley.

The pathways will take you through some of the most historic parts of Tempe to some of the newest parts of Tempe.

It will connect you into other cities.

So this is part of a regional system.

West connects you into Phoenix, East connects you into Mesa, North will connect you into Scottsdale.

So you're gonna see public art, you're gonna see habitat and wildlife.

- [Ike] Tempe Town Lake, and all the recreation opportunities it brings, has totally changed the city of Tempe.

It's vaulted the city to heights that make it so much more than just a college town anymore.

- As you can see, this is a massive regional public space, so it is considered a regional park.

We do get tons of visitors.

And part of that's just from the passive infrastructure here, like these pathways.

But we also have major events here.

So we do have an Ironman here.

We have major music fests here.

And that brings in tens to hundreds of thousands of people.

We like it that this is a regional and a statewide location where people can go and enjoy many different things.

So if you want live music, you wanna recreate on the lake, you wanna see an event on the lake, those are all things that draw people here, get visitors here, and really make it a place in the whole state that competes with the visitor travel that we might see in a place like the Grand Canyon.

- [Ike] Money Magazine ranked the city the second-best place to live in the country in 2022.

A lot of that has to do with the lake.

- So for decades, I would say that this part of Tempe was a little bit forgotten, and had not been given a lot of attention.

As the city became a city that was landlocked, we couldn't grow outward anymore.

We had to kind of make best what we had.

And so, a lot of attention came to this beautiful place.

It's a river running through the heart of our city.

And we decided that there's many things that can happen around this important feature that's part of the whole region.

So adding housing, adding employment, putting in pathways, putting in park space, putting in habitat, putting in public art, those are all things that really helped to make this a place where people wanted to come to, creating a space, creating public space that's really valuable, and is adding to the quality of life in Tempe.

(upbeat music) (wheel squeaking) - All in all, it's a scenic and smooth ride through the city of Tempe.

Tempe Town Lake Loop isn't just for biking.

There are lots of regular walkers who've taken this concrete trail on a regular basis.

Skateboarders and scooter speedsters also stake out their claim on the loop.

- I ride my bike to work every day.

I have the advantage of being relatively close to work.

But it's something that's really important to me.

To be a role model for our programs and for that lifestyle in Tempe.

For me, it's a good pace to get to work.

It helps me to feel connected to the city, to the environment that I live in, by going at that pace, at a human scale travel pace.

I do feel lucky that I'm able to do that.

And certainly I've seen others that feel the same about the improvement in their own quality of life by being able to bike to work.

The vibe in Tempe at the Town Lake, it changes every season.

It changes throughout the day.

Morning time, you'll have folks that are commuting by bike, or exercising around the lake, or even fishing.

Daytime, it might be a little quieter, especially in the summer.

Daytime events in the winter, there'd be tens upon thousands of people here.

So it changes with the seasons, and it changes with the time of day.

It's a place though where, again, we have a lake and you can do all the things on the lake.

You can travel around the lake and see those things that are happening.

(wheel squeaking) - Biking has been so great, but now it's time to cool down a bit with a little water.

(lively upbeat music) - It's a great sport 'cause you're outdoors and you see the birds, and you work with other rowers.

That is, particularly when you're in a boat with other rowers, it's a real team sport.

Everyone has to be exactly in sync.

You have to pivot and swing together, and keep the balance.

It's like eight people riding a long bicycle.

You have to keep that set, they call it, the balance.

So it's a lot of fun.

When it works, it just feels great.

- [Ike] When you think about the sport of rowing, you usually think about those elite Ivy League college rowing teams, skimming along waters on the East Coast.

While there are no Harvards or Princetons grown here in the desert, the sport is catching on.

It has become quite popular here at Tempe Town Lake.

- I'm doing club row, which is for experienced rowers who know how to get back in a boat, a chance to go out on your own time.

And we like to go out before it gets hot but after it gets light.

So that's what we did this morning.

It's a beautiful day.

(upbeat music continues) - Probably the best part of this sport is it creates a sense of community.

You work with the other rowers, you train with the other rowers and the coaches.

You create a sense of community there and you feel an attachment to community.

To Tempe, and to its facilities, and its lake, and the services it offers.

- [Ike] Emily Burkett is the Assistant Boating Coordinator for Tempe Town Lake.

- There are in fact four junior rowing programs on the lake for high school students.

There are two, what we call masters rowing groups.

So that's for anyone over the age of 21.

And then ASU also has a club rowing team.

So there is a vibrant rowing community here on the lake.

(lively upbeat music) I'm from a small town right outside of Boston.

My mom read an article in the Boston Globe about rowing, and said, you're not doing any sport right now.

This is what you're gonna do.

And she signed me up for it and I hated it.

I hated it.

And she kept making me go back.

And then I started to get a little bit successful and I said, "You know what?

"Maybe it's not so bad, Mom."

And I used it to go to college, and it really got me to where I am in my life now.

So thanks, Mom.

- As one of the oldest Olympic sports, rowing involves a whole new set of skills that as a beginner, I don't really have.

So I've rowed in the gym before, but never in the water.

Good thing I have Emily here to show me the proper way how to row in a boat.

Emily, please teach me your ways.

- I got you, let's go.

- I trust you.

- So you wanna come up to where your arms are straight out.

- Okay.

- Then you're gonna lift your hands so that your blades go in the water.

And then you're gonna pull your hands back towards you.

And when your hands get to your body, then you push down, push your hands down to get your blades outta the water.

- Push down.

- Yep, now push your hands away.

- Away.

- Yeah.

- And down.

Man, this is harder than it looks.

(lively upbeat music) And rotate.

- So when you tap your hands down into your lap, that's when you wanna flip the handle towards you.

That's when it goes from that 90 degree to the flat.

Yeah, flat right there.

- Got it.

So, when I'm here, I wanna be flat?

- So, yep, and then when you get ready to put the blades in the water, that's when you're gonna flip them back.

Yep, like that, and then you're gonna pull back through the water with the blades squared.

I just love being able to get out on the water to exercise, to show people something new.

Especially in Arizona, it's just a sport that no one really expects to see.

(lively upbeat music) Yes, yes, yes, that's it!

That's it, nice.

Oh no, push down, push down.

- Oh, push down, push.

- You had it, you had it.

- Had one.

Okay.

- Yeah, you had it.

- [Ike] We got one.

(both laughing) I'll take one.

I might not have mastered Emily's elegant synchronicity but I definitely got a taste for it, and I will be back.

- This is a sport that'll keep you healthy through your elderly years.

We're grateful to the Tempe Recreation Department for encouraging us to participate in this, and other activities and sports.

- I love being able to come out on the water after a long day of work, and just kind of turn off all of the outside stimuli, and just go out and move fast across the water.

And for me, that's like the best thing.

That's the best thing about it is just getting out there, getting outside, and just turning off like the stress of outside life for like an hour or two.

- I love rowing because it's outdoors.

It makes you stronger, it makes you flexible.

And I enjoy the wildlife tremendously.

The cormorants, the egrets, the herons.

And it really does make you stronger, as you can see.

(lively cheerful music) - [Spokesperson 1] "Trail Mix'd" is made possible in part by a gift from Sue and Bill Ahearn.

Additional support provided by.

- [Spokesperson 2] SRP is staying ahead of the valley's growing energy needs.

We're investing in one of the country's largest solar battery storage projects to deliver power that's as reliable as it is sustainable.

- [Spokesperson 3] Albertsons, Safeway Pharmacies, and Valley Nonprofit Mission of Mercy are proud to support cancer awareness.

They encourage you to talk to your doctor, get recommended screenings, and don't forget your flu vaccine.

More information at Albertsons or safeway.com.

- [Spokesperson 4] Whitfill Nursery proud to support eight Arizona PBS, a valley tradition since 1946.

Over 200 acres of Arizona-grown trees, citrus, and palms, complete custom design and installation, and Whitfill Nursery still does the digging, whitfillnursery.com - [Spokesperson 1] And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.