February 4, 2009

By Tim Briese

8.6 miles roundtrip, 2000' elevation gain, 6:10 total time

My wife Teresa and I spent a week in early February visiting my brother Tom and his wife at their winter residence in Mesa, Arizona. We were blessed with beautiful weather and decided to take advantage of it and go on a hike in the nearby Superstition Mountains. As Teresa and I prepared to head out for the day Tom's wife Joan asked if we would have a cell phone and GPS along, mentioning that hikers sometimes get lost in those mountains.  Her concern for us was touching, for she acted as though she might never see us again!

We drove a few miles southeast of Apache Junction on U.S. 60 and went left on the well-marked Peralta Road and followed this excellent gravel road about eight miles across the verdant desert floor to the trailhead. We learned about this hike from Scott Warren=s book A100 Classic Hikes in Arizona.@ The trailhead was a popular place, with numerous vehicles parked there and other hikers preparing to embark. Two trails are accessed from this point, the Dutchman Trail which heads to the east, and the Peralta Trail which heads to the northwest up the Peralta Canyon, climbing 1300 feet in about two and a half miles to the Fremont Saddle. From this vantage point one is afforded a splendid view of the Weavers Needle, a well-known landmark in the Superstitions. This saddle was our initial goal.

At about 9:45 we embarked on the well-used trail up the canyon. It wound up through the vegetation along the canyon floor, occasionally climbing up rocky steps in some places. Rocky volcanic crags and majestic saguaro cacti graced the slopes above. It was fun to hike in a new place we had never visited before. The morning sun beat down warmly, with the temperature on its way to 75 or 80 degrees later in the day. We passed several other hikers on our way up the canyon. In relatively short order we climbed to the Fremont Saddle where we were greeted by an excellent view of the impressive Weavers Needle, a volcanic tower that stands a thousand feet above the surrounding terrain. Legend holds that the Lost Dutchman's gold mine lies within the shadow of Weavers Needle. We enjoyed our own gold mine of sorts, as we sat in the shade of some nearby rocks and gazed at the surrounding excellent views while we ate our lunch.

We decided to continue on the trail down into Boulder Canyon on the other side of the saddle, on a route that would take us past the west side of the Needle. The trail switchbacked down into the drainage, winding past all sorts of interesting desert flora. We kept a watchful eye for rattlesnakes all day but never encountered any. A mile or so below the pass we came upon a woman from Seattle at a backpack camp who told us her husband and a friend were climbing the Needle today. We later spotted them with binoculars high up near the summit of the tower. It looked like a serious technical climb. We continued down the trail to a point directly west of and below the Needle. From this vantage point it had a double-humped profile, considerably different than the view of it from the saddle. We decided to turn around and head back here, abandoning an over-optimistic notion we had earlier of hiking all the way down the valley and looping back around on the lengthy Dutchman Trail.

We climbed back up to the saddle in the afternoon heat and took a side trail to the northeast to obtain an even more impressive view of the Needle. We contemplated returning to the trailhead on the more rugged Cave Trail that runs along the ridge above Peralta Canyon, but in the end decided it best to return the way we came. Shadows were lengthening as we headed back down the canyon. The shade provided welcome relief from the surprisingly warm February sun. We Coloradans were unaccustomed to hiking in this sort of heat, moderate as it was.

We returned to the truck a little before 4:00 and headed back to Mesa. It seemed remarkable to experience such a comparative wilderness just a few short miles away from the sprawling Phoenix metro area.

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