This past Saturday, I set out for what i thought would be a mild, five-mile journey along the south rim of Barks Canyon, in the Superstition Wilderness, east of Metro Phoenix.

A gaze at the map board, near Peralta Trailhead, however, showed this would mean a three-mile bushwhack, through prime rattlesnake turf.  Since that is being penny-wise, and oh so pound-foolish, I opted to go on down Peralta Canyon, letting the chips fall where they may.  Did they ever.  This day became as full, demanding and glorious as the Longest Day trek last June, along Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon.

This central part of the Superstition Mountains has an iconic centerpiece:  Weaver’s Needle, a rhyolite and sandstone wonder that seems to sit by itself, between Peralta, Barks, Needle and East Boulder Canyons.  It kept me in its sights, most of the day.

The Superstitions draw people from all over, much as do Grand Canyon and Sedona.  There are two major facets, which I will show in the next two posts:  The largely rhyolite (volcanic) formations which dominate the landscape and the wildflowers, which explode this time of year.  (Peak flower time is later this month, but we enjoy what we can, when we can.)

I started out in the overflow parking lot, 1/4 mile from Peralta Trailhead.  The canyon actually gets its start here, with rising buttes to the west.

The trailhead itself, as I mentioned earlier, is fully informative.  The information it gave me about the way ahead offered two choices- See Weaver’s Needle from a variety of vantage points and make a full day the marvelous existing trails, or stop at Fremont Saddle and head back.  I opted for the former, and ended up with 17 miles under my feet, at day’s end.

Here are some of the features of the trailhead itself:

The sign on the right seems to be well-read.  I saw none of the above along any of the trails.

Peralta Canyon Trail takes the hiker up to Fremont Saddle, then down along East Boulder Canyon (which is actually west of Weaver’s Needle).  It ends at Black Top Mesa, where the eastbound Dutchmans Trail takes over.  One may follow Dutchmans, named for a gold prospector named Jacob Waltz, for about 14 miles, around the eastern periphery of Superstition Wilderness.  I opted to take the trail for 3 miles, then, with a group from Phoenix, went up Terrapin Trail and Bluff Springs Trail, back to the parking area.  Seventeen miles in one day is enough, don’t ya think?

Here are some tidbits of parts two and three of this series.

Rhyolite formation, along Peralta Canyon Trail

Brittlebush

Castle-like formation, near Fremont Saddle

Pac Man?

Future chorus members?

Rhyolite castle

The Thinker, Bluff Springs Trail

The consensus among the four of us, at the end of the day, was:  ‘It’s best to not have to sleep under the stars tonight’.  Back in the settled environs of Apache Junction, I stopped to gas up and to rehydrate myself with electrolytes.  As I sat in the car afterwards, sipping my beverage, a jeep pulled up alongside.  Out hopped a lovely young woman, bikini-clad and in flip flops, and moving with a purpose.  She came back a few minutes later, with a similar beverage, smiled wanly and drove off.  My thoughts are that life is always beautiful to those who show respect.  The rhyolite edifices, the wildflowers, the emerging frogs, my fellow hikers, random beautiful people, and even the heard but unseen snakes- all deserve nothing but love and respect.  In this way, we shall have peace.

Part 2- The Rocks and Buttes, tomorrow.

When I make a long drive, lately, it seems as if I get in the car and am transported by a force other than my own vigilance or the tank of gasoline.  So it went this past weekend. After taking a rest, following my Good Friday volunteer training in setting up a fire shelter with the local Red Cross, I headed out towards San Diego, getting as far as Banning, before the need to sleep became prominent.  A night at the Sunset Motel, followed by a hearty breakfast at Gramma’s Restaurant (the food’s good and the waitresses are all cute), got me up and running.  I was back in the force’s guiding clutches, and in San Diego, by 10 AM.

Aram managed to get himself up, and to our meeting place at the NEX gas station, around 11.  After a nice lunch at Chinese City, in National City, we ran an errand at a local discount store.  It was instructive for me to learn the parking lot etiquette of Mexican-Americans.  Drivers queue their cars up and wait carefully for people to pull out- no honking, no jockeying for position.  In my case, I had to move past a lady who was trying to pull out, so the Jeep waiting for her could get into position.  The lady didn’t understand at first, and started yelling at us.  After she figured it out, peace returned to the planet and I pulled around and found my spot.

The errand accomplished, thirty minutes later, we headed up to Iron Mountain, just east of Poway.  There, we hiked about halfway up and took a path around to a bowl-shaped valley, in the midst of four peaks.  Iron Mountain has two trailheads.  We chose the more northerly of the two, as it was less of a thoroughfare, and had lovely flower gardens on its eastern flank.

Aram led the way, for most of our four-mile loop.

We got to the crossroads and decided to enjoy the valley, and its groves of trees, rather than push upwards to the peak of Iron Mountain.  It’ll be there for future visits.

As you can see, the boulders speak volumes.

Here are the groves which captivated me.

Then again, there is no escaping the magic of SoCal’s flower gardens.

As I would see on Monday, at Crystal Cove, flowers can thrive just fine on their own, as well.

Son and I went back to San Diego and enjoyed quality Italian cuisine at  the lively Trattoria Fantastica.  I spent a restful night at Day’s Inn, ignoring the occasional train.

In part II of this account, we look at Coronado Island.

When I recently visited Deer Valley Rock Art Center, in north Phoenix, the docent made several mentions of Hohokam ruins atop Perry Mesa, in Agua Fria National Monument, southeast of our lovely mountain town.

On the way back from my weekend visit to the Valley of the Sun, the urge hit to check out the area most clearly identified by the Bureau of Land Management as having such ruins:  Pueblo La Plata.  It lies at the business end of a narrow, rocky and rather uninviting switchback, but as luck would have it, the road was dry and the rocks were not jutting up too high for my little Kia to handle.  When we got to the top, the scene above greeted us, looking like a stunt double for the Bonneville Salt Flats.

I parked Kia Optima off to the side of the road, giving her a chance to get some serious rest.  Another 1 1/2 miles of hiking northward brought me to the remote Hohokam site.

There are 32 “rooms” preserved here, very much indicating that some serious living took place on top of Perry Mesa, long before Perry showed up here.  This is the northernmost area settled by the Hohokam alone.  They did visit the areas now occupied by Prescott, Camp Verde and Mayer, but there were other groups there as well.  So, Pueblo La Plata, with its proximity to Silver Creek, hosted a sizable community of farmers, traders and hunters.

Numerous shards of pottery and arrowheads may be found, in a couple of places arranged on flat rocks, for visitors to see and hopefully not add to their private collections.  A ranger was present, while two couples and I were enjoying the views.

After about thirty minutes, it was time for me to head back.  Kia and I had no trouble going down the grumpy old switchback.  You can see an SUV from California likewise made short work of the downhill.

There are other areas of Agua Fria I’d like to visit sometime soon.  I need Kia for several more journeys though, so next time, I may just park at the foot of the switchback, and pretend Perry Mesa is the South Rim of Grand Canyon.

This man-made reservoir, about twenty miles northwest of Phoenix, is the end point of the Agua Fria River.  On Saturday afternoon, while I was walking along the southern shore, there were people on boats, people fishing from shore and people sitting in the shallows, enjoying the cool water.  This is what Lake Pleasant, and other reservoirs around Phoenix’s periphery, mean to those whose other option is to crank up the AC- starting right about now.

Wildflowers are also starting to grace the desert.  This past weekend was the first burst.

The water itself reminded me of the best of the Sea of Cortez- blue-green and clear.  This section is at New Waddell Dam, on the southeast corner of the lake.

The flooding of the area took with it a large section of the upper Sonoran Desert, and some ranches.  in contrast to the lush greenery that surrounds the lake, skeletal trees still jut out from the shallows of Lake Pleasant’s northern arms.  This scene is one of several at Castle Creek, on the northwest side of the lake.

I know the local fish are happy here.  The shad were jumping all over the place, while I sat and contemplated just how awesome this oasis is.  They did  a fine job of staying away from the fishermen who were gathered atop Castle Creek Dam and along the creek’ s shore.

Unlike the lakes that grace Prescott’s forests and grasslands, Lake Pleasant cannot be circumnavigated on foot.  A hiking trail did engage my attention from the Visitors’ Center to Park Headquarters, on the south shore.  The north shore has separate hiking paths.  In between are sheer drop-offs and plenty of opportunities to bushwhack through the intervening desert.  Somehow, I don’t think the local rattlers would take too kindly to it.

The second of several hikes I have taken during this Nineteen-Day Fast occurred last Friday.  Between Lynx Lake and Walker Road, in Prescott National Forest, lies the Homestead Trail.  It runs north to south, for 11 miles.  I have done the northernmost section, about two miles in the area near Salida Gulch, last Fall.  On this past Ides of March, though, I was focused on the trail’s midsection- about 2.5 miles each way, from a point paralleling  the south shore of Lynx Lake to Smith Ravine.

This part of the trail is rather flat and mellow for the first mile.  Once past a couple of campgrounds, there is a downslope, then another mellow segment in a fairly dense pine forest.   Then comes a livestock fence, with a hiker’s turnstile,  followed by an upslope of about 1/2 mile.  Smith Ravine appears to the left of the small hill’s summit and goes on for about two miles.  I chose to stop and turn around, after about a quarter mile.  The rest of the trail will most likely involve more people.

Homestead Trail is a fine route for beginner hikers.

It’s conventional wisdom that there are some things in this world that just don’t go together, like the above-mentioned substances.  We Americans try anyway- beer and ice cream, ice cream with meat filling, dill pickle-flavoured potato chips, loud, swing jazz “lullabies”.  Sometimes we get a serendipitous hit, other times- it’s Loserville.

I have observed the Baha’i Fast, every March 2-20, since 1981.  It has generally been a given that one should lie low, go easy on physical activity- unless it is necessary for one’s livelihood.  Only once before, in 1992, did I let my wife talk me into a hike during the Fast.  That was a leisurely walk up and down Prescott’s Thumb Butte.  It hurt me none, but the following year, we both reverted to form.

This year, I have kept up my work schedule, and been no worse for the wear.   This week has been Spring Break, and I found myself getting a bit restless, after accomplishing all I wanted to do around the house- which was a considerable to-do list.  So, I have devised the Fast Four-miler.  That round trip distance is about as much as my body will do, without constant replenishing of its water supply.

Sunday’s visit to the Chino Valley Peavine Trail was the first such outing.  This afternoon, I made a more vigorous jaunt- on Seven-Mile Gulch Trail, in the Lynx Lake area.  Seven-Mile is the name of the gulch and its nearby mountain.  The actual round-trip is four and a half miles.

T

The journey starts out easily enough.  The first 1/3 mile or so is relatively flat, and goes through shaded ponderosa and alligator juniper country.  After that, this small rock formation indicates it’s time to turn right, and up the first of five inclines we go.

The first incline is wide, but slippery, and moderate in difficulty.  This trail is exposed to the south, after the turn, meaning the afternoon sun can be an issue.  I coped by soaking  head and ball cap, after a fashion.  The first incline is about 1/4 mile long.  There are four more inclines, before the summit of Seven-Mile Mountain.  To the tenderfoot hiker, the third, and steepest, climb could very well feel like seven miles.  It’s actually 9/10 of a mile, but it is of Grand Canyon quality, without the switchbacks.  Here are views of halfway up the Alley-Oop.  First, looking back-then, what lies immediately ahead.                                                                                                               

Pacing oneself, though, makes this hike a satisfying venture, with fine panoramic views at each of the four ridges along the way, and from the summit itself.

This view, of the Bradshaw Range, is from the second ridge.

On the way down, at the end of the aforementioned third uphill, there lay another heart-shaped rock- this one of pink quartz.

Minimal pain, followed by a very sweet gain.

unday, 17 February 2013

• The South Side of Constellation

  Last fall, I visited this area of Constellation Trail, built around the site of the 1959 crash of the US Air Force jet, Constellation, in Prescott’s Granite Dells area.  With yesterday being a heavenly day, I went back and took several photos of the area.  Here are six of those.

                   

  

                                  

  This sort of scene is de rigeur among the thousands of hoodoos in the Prescott area.  Boulders, of granite and of limestone, are the dominant geological feature in our neck of the woods.  It all makes for hours of great hiking, clambering and making friends, for both people and dogs.