Revisits observed changes, not drought

The Superstitions range from 2000 to 5600 feet elevation, too hot for summer visits.

Luckily, our trips were usually in December as part of family visits over Christmas break. Starting in the late 1970s, we visited at least every decade, and observed many changes. At first, very few visitors except an infrequent group doing a long trip. In the 1980s, vandalism threatened vehicles parked at remote trailheads; after seeing a car with smashed windows at a trailhead we had planned to use, we began parking at Canyon Lake Marina on north side that allows backpackers to leave vehicles within its gates, locked at night!

Cattle were eventually removed, but thorny desert scrub encroached lesser-used areas, maybe because of reduced grazing after heavy use. In the late 1990s, we would see many day hikers and signs of over-use from weekend backpackers from Peralta and First Water trailheads near Mesa. Stock (horse) overuse reduced some trails into rocky rubble; campers, not cattle, trashed areas near springs. Tonto National Forest had difficulty maintaining trails in the 1990s and early 2000s, but vigorous Adopt-a-Trail and volunteer programs plus work on Arizona Trail (which crosses the wilderness) have recently improved trails.

After 2000, we lived on the East Coast and weren’t aware of climate change impacts in the West. Despite drought in Arizona, our two visits—facilitated by air travel from Washington, D.C. and rental cars in Phoenix—happened after unusual fall rains.

In 2008, family and friends dropped us off at Tortilla Ranch and we hiked as far as Rogers Canyon—where we turned back because of thigh deep water.

In 2013, a dry year in the Southwest changed with heavy rains and snow in November. On our Superstition visit, we found deep pools in Red Tanks, usually dry, above La Barge Canyon.

2016: Dry Night In Angel Basin

We had planned a loop trip from Boulder Canyon, accompanied partway by my cousin Mike, former Phoenix resident and avid hiker. We found area a bit dryer than usual but still camped by water the first two nights and found pools for our third night. Interestingly, Mike warned about dry conditions. Mike had planned a shorter trip and left us at Tortilla Trail to hike out to his vehicle. We ascended Tortilla Pass, passing up a spring on our way, wanting to reach Angel Basin before dark. The last time we visited Rogers Canyon, it was flooded!

This year it was bone dry. After our vain search, we set up the tent, we each ate a power bar, took a swig of water, and went to bed. Next morning, we got up at daylight, breakfasting on power bars and sips of water. Map showed five springs en route to Reavis Ranch. Reavis Creek usually was running but we were not sure of anything.

David kept dropping off trail into the wash, looking for potholes. He found one which we drained to pump a half liter of water.

Two miles down canyon, David spotted a pool or mirage from the trail; after brief trek back up wash from trail crossing, we found a beautiful deep-water hole appropriately named “Hole Spring.” Our brush with mortality was over! I enjoyed hot breakfast and bath.

All other springs were dry on climb to Reavis Saddle—Frog Tank, Cimarron, Plow Saddle, Willow—although we did not look for pools. We found pools on Reavis Creek and camped among large juniper, live oak, sycamore, and maybe Arizona cypress.

That night a storm moved in.

A little rain changed everything. We broke camp in rain, hiked along Reavis Valley in rain gear with periodic showers, then spent a cold cloudy afternoon hiking over divide, down to Rogers Canyon junction and up to Rogers Trough Trailhead. We met weekend backpackers heading up to Reavis. We hiked up Pinto Creek Trail to Rogers Trough on a breezy sunny hillside to set up camp and dry out. Trough was dry but a cut pipe from the spring was running above it.

Clouds indicated more evening rain. David securely staked the tent and we dug trenches around it. I hiked to West Pinto Divide and hurried down as thick clouds rolled in.

The storm almost let us finish dinner before it arrived in a fury with high winds, driving rain, and thunder and lightning. Around midnight David had to don rain gear to “rescue” our backpacks, tossed around by gale. My boots, tucked under the fly, were soaked in driving rain. I wondered about the campers at Reavis, 1400 feet higher.

Rest of the trip was cold and windy, but we found every spring had ample pools; only the washes were dry. David filled up at every waterhole—just in case.

2017: Slick Rock Disaster On Popular Peralta

I never told Nano about my Superstition visits and she died in 1991 long before our first brush with disaster. The very next year, I again got into trouble in the Superstitions within two hours!

We were traveling from Tucson to Phoenix by roundabout scenic way avoiding the Interstate. As we passed along the Superstitions, I suggested a lunch break jog. We rarely used popular trailheads but were near Peralta so we headed up there. The dozens of cars coming down (at noon!) indicated lots of hikers—which would be my undoing. We jogged up Peralta Trail two miles to Fremont Saddle for the view of famous Weavers Needle. On the way back down, I slowed to turn on a switchback and braced my foot against a rock. Slick and polished from thousands of boots, that rock was like black ice. I fell and broke my arm.

2019: Night visitor, fire-altered creek

Our most recent visits toured a landscape marred by the area’s first megafire. But water—unseasonal rains—may have fueled the burn and hampered post-fire hiking conditions.

Started in late June 2019 by human ignition on the south wilderness boundary, Woodbury Fire burned 96,000 acres—all the wilderness except popular westside trails near Mesa. (And that area burned in Sawtooth and Superstition fires of summer 2020.)

Heavy rains in October 2018 and January-February 2019 created a bright, mostly non-native grass carpet in range country. Red brome (possibly planted for earlier cattle use) dried out in late spring and carried wildfire to the crest of the mountains, burning most of the pinyon juniper and pine. Then a late September storm brought extensive floods and washed out SR 88 between Tortilla Flat and Lake Roosevelt. (Still closed in 2024 , although Arizona Transportation Department is studying possible new road alignment.)

We briefly visited east side of Superstitions in December 2019 to “check out” burned area, driving around the ugly sprawling Pinto Mine complex to enter lovely shaded and unburned Haunted Canyon, apparently named for narrow section with dark walls.

Nano’s warnings of Superstition dangers again came close to fulfillment that night while camped up the creek in a grove of sycamore trees. I heard scrabbling on the tent right by my head. I banged on the side and the noise subsided, then started again. Something was shaking the tent wall. I roused David, who unzipped his side for a look. A fox was gnawing on the tent, trying to make its way inside!

David put on his boots and ran after the animal, yelling and waving a hiking pole. When he dashed after it, it retreated toward the woods but came back several times, making wide circles around our camp. Finally, it disappeared into the forest.

(After the trip we contacted Arizona Game & Fish officials; one thought it could have been a rabid fox and was relieved we had no contact, although another said the animal might have habituated to people and was searching for food rather than someone to bite. I later found videos of a fox invading a tent and biting the inhabitants!)

On up the canyon we visited Tony Ranch, a historic cabin heavily visited by day hikers from north end of Haunted Canyon Trail. We continued on lesser-used brushy Bull Basin Trail over pass to Rock Creek for peaceful night in the woods.

Next day we entered fire zone on sandy shallow West Pinto Creek (formerly a cool shady rocky stream). Oak Flat junction was a barren wasteland with blackened stumps and broken signs (newly installed just a couple years before!). We climbed two miles up the winding Campaign Trail—in fair shape but eroding and rapidly encroached by thorny vegetation.

2020: Wet Hiking In Burned Wilderness

Our last, longer visit to eastside Superstitions in March 2020 was nice weather but soggy hiking. We were discouraged by multiple crossings of muddy Campaign Creek.

When the canyon narrowed and crossings deepened, we abandoned our plans to loop via this trail and Fire Line Trail to Reavis Ranch. Instead, we hiked up Reavis Gap Trail and caught the AZT—boggy track over a ridge and down to the ranch site. But we did not get to camp in the beautiful green pasture under the oaks—Reavis Creek was running high and fast, and we hesitated to cross it in the dark. Instead, we camped in remnant oak on mucky clay.

Next day we crossed lowered creek. I wanted to visit Reavis Falls (downstream from the ranch, reached by steep route off Reavis Trail [an old road]). With the high water it had to be stupendous. However, burned road with numerous washouts was so slow-going, we had to turn back right where the falls route took off to get back to camp before dark.

We finished our loop (down AZT and side trail back to our vehicle). But I wanted to see Reavis Falls. We agreed to hike in from beginning of Reavis Trail on the Apache Trail (SR 88)—closed by a landslide further down. We were told it was open to the Reavis turnoff. It wasn’t. We parked at road closure and followed GPS up steep wash to Reavis Trailhead, cutting off five extra road miles. But it took an hour, and road through burn and steep 3-mile route to the falls were slow going.

We got to Reavis Creek—still almost a mile short of the falls and with just enough daylight to get back to Lime Mountain where we left our packs for camp.

The creek was running high. David thinks we would not have made it up the steep narrow canyon to see the falls—unless we did a lot of wading.

Unique Wilderness Full Of Legends

Superstition Mountain lands were designated Primitive Area in 1937 and wilderness in 1964. They encompass 160,000 acres of Sonoran Desert, riparian canyons, oak-juniper woodlands, high-elevation pine, and interesting rock formations from volcanic processes.

Used lightly by early cliff dwellers and Apaches, Superstitions attracted miners in the 19th and 20th centuries, then cattle ranchers selling beef to miners. Reavis Ranch had a vegetable garden and orchard. (Reavis’s gravesite is on Arizona Trail [AZT] north of Rogers Trough Trailhead.) Springs and trails bear names of other stockmen. Dutchman Trail was inspired by a German (“Dutch”) immigrant who claimed to have found gold. The “Lost Dutchman’s Mine” search has inspired many books and maps.

Nano’s warnings never kept me out of the Superstitions, but they did foster an interest in all the cowboy and miner legends that have made this area so famous.

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