The Superstition Wilderness Part I: The Hieroglyphic Trail
Distance: 7.21 mi
Elevation Gain: 2986 ft
Peak Elevation: 5045 ft
alltrails.com
It was early December, and I was already sick of winter. The grey skies, the leafless trees. I needed to get back out into nature, and some place warm. I hunted around the internet for ideas of where I could comfortably backpack in the winter. After much searching, the Arizona desert seemed to be calling out to me.
I ordered a few trail guides from Amazon and waited for them to arrive. When they finally did, I sprawled my topographical maps across my dining room table and spent my Sunday morning carefully measuring the distance between water sources through a mountainous desert landscape.
This was going to be tricky.
After a few days of planning, I settled on a route that would take me end to end through about 30 miles of mountain peaks and canyons through the “Superstition Wilderness”. I have to admit, the name itself is one of the things that drew me to it. The origin of the name is up for some debate, but the most likely story is when white settlers first came to the area, the Pima Native Americans warned them of strange sounds, mysterious deaths and disappearances, and a general fear of the mountain. This led the settlers to believe that the Pima people were superstitious about the area, and thus the name was born.*
So after a few weeks and a couple jammed packed days celebrating the holidays with family, I was glad to be at the airport heading out into the wild for some much needed peaceful solitude. About halfway through the plane ride, I noticed it was a bit chilly. Actually, it was very chilly and only seemed to be getting colder. As I fought back the shivers, I looked around the plane to see if anyone was as uncomfortable as I was only to find one person actually taking off their sweatshirt.
“Oh no. Am I getting sick?”
On the way to the hotel, feeling increasingly like a zombie, I stopped by a local pharmacy to buy a thermometer.
Crap.
All those weeks of planning and there I was in a Phoenix hotel room with a 101.5 degree fever. But hey, if there is one thing I learned from my time in the Marine Corps, it’s when faced with a challenge, you’ve got to improvise, adapt, and overcome. I was not about to let this fever defeat me.
Originally the plan was to Uber it out to the Peralta trailhead, hike north over the course of three days, then at the end of the trip, pop out on a main road and hitchhike it out closer to the city. That wasn’t going to work now. Instead, I decided to head to bed early, get some rest and come up with a new adapted plan of attack in the morning
Day 1:
I woke up and I felt better, but not great. I decided to just do a day hike with a fully loaded pack as a shakedown cruise to see how much I could handle. This was actually a blessing in disguise, as there was one particular hike I wanted to check out but couldn’t fit into my original route: The Hieroglyphic Trail up to the peak of La Barge Mountain.
I got a late start that day since I now had to rent a car to get me back and forth. But after an hour drive, I eventually got to the trailhead, popped a couple of dayquil and I was on my way. The approach was a long easy slope into a canyon. A perfect warm up. As I got closer, titan-esque mountains in front of me began to take up more and more of my peripheral vision. The stature and variety of the desert plant life here surprised me. I had spent months in the Mojave Desert before, and almost two years total in Iraq, but neither of those barren landscapes were anything like this. The cacti were huge, and there were so many. There were parts that looked like a cacti forest.
A few hours in, I finally got to the section from which the trail gets its name. After a bit of a climb over the boulder-laden trickling waterfalls, I reached the petroglyphs! These amazing stone carvings were created by the Hohokam people 1,500 years ago. As a history teacher, I was unabashedly nerding out about this part. I imagine this area had some major significance for these people all those years ago. My guess is it had something to do with the running waterfall in such an arid area. Either that or it was just some Hohokam punk teenagers and their ancient graffiti.
It is interesting to think about. Had I come across some asshole permanently scarring the rocks that day, I would have been pretty pissed. But give it 1,500 years, and graffiti becomes a mysterious national treasure.
Damn teenagers.
But enough gawking over ancient art. I had a mountain to summit, and it was getting later. After a brief snack and water break, I was back on my way. Not too long after the petroglyphs, I turned a corner onto a much different looking trail. The hike became noticeably steeper, more technical, and difficult to follow. Instead of following a well worn path up a gentle slope, I was scrambling over tall boulders, periodically looking for cairns (man-made piles of rock to mark the trail) on the steep rock face to make sure I was still on the right path.
Another hour passed by and I noticed the sun was falling closer and closer to the canyon wall. I then realized I may not make it to the summit in time for me to get back down in daylight. I gave myself a firm turnaround time and picked up the pace while still attempting to keep a sure footing with each step.
As the trail went on for a few more miles, it became increasingly steeper. I could now reach out and touch the large gravel-like rocks in front of me. As I gazed further up, I could see the path was only about another hundred yards until it hit the crest. And from there only about another mile of following the ridgeline to the peak. I had to hustle if I was going to make it. And so I did, and my footing got sloppy.
While moving quickly up the hill, the graveled red rocks slipped from under my toes. I fell down onto my thigh into a short slide. A brief but beautiful rock avalanche cascaded below me. I planted myself and dug my heels into the gravel. I remained seated there, looking out into the canyon I had just spent the last few hours trying to climb out of. The shadows were getting longer. I looked at my watch. It was close to the turnaround time, and it wasn’t worth the risk of getting sloppy, especially not in the dark.
I was calling it.
You win today, La Barge Mountain. But I will be back tomorrow to conquer one of your siblings.
Before I decided to head back down, I took a moment to take a few photos and appreciate the scenery around me. I began to notice something incredibly odd. Something I was not used to. I was surrounded by complete silence.
I was used to hiking the densely wooded mountains of the East Coast. There were always sounds in the woods. Birds, crickets, or even just the wind through the trees. But here, there was none of that. There was no wildlife anywhere around me and no trees. Just me, the rocks and complete silence. There was something both peaceful and ominous about it.
After a few minutes of peaceful contemplation. I adjusted my trekking poles and started my descent.
What I saw on my way back down was something I was completely unprepared for. The light of the setting sun bouncing off of the red and orange tinted rocks was the most breathtaking scenery yet. Golden hour in the Arizona desert.
A subtle but audible, “wow” under my breath broke the silence of the day.
As the sun sunk below the canyon walls and my path became engulfed in shadows, I began to realize that I may have misjudged my turnaround time. I had not considered how much slower climbing down the boulders was going to be, especially with a twenty-pound pack throwing me off balance. But I figured as long as I could make it back to the halfway point before dark I would be good. The trail would go back to being a long, steady, well marked slope the rest of the way. With my headlamp packed, I should be fine. Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
Upon exiting the canyon and into the wide open desert, I could see the city of Phoenix far off in the distance. The last bits of sunlight were shining behind it. I would have thought of something poetic here, like a phoenix rising from the ashes or something, but the dayquil was wearing off, and I just wanted to get back and rest.
I finally made it back to the trailhead in pitch black darkness. I hopped in the car and headed back to the hotel. Driving back, I assessed the day. I was going to head to bed early in an attempt to rest out this sickness. The next day, I would trek deep out into the wilderness to spend the night under the stars, sleeping with the coyotes.
Click Here for Part II: In the Shadow of Weavers Needle
*Sources:
Hiland, Andrea. “How the Superstition Mountains Got Their Name, Legend.” Azcentral, The Republic | Azcentral.com, 27 Oct. 2015, www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/asked-answered/2015/10/13/how-superstition-mountains-got-their-name-legend/73833582/.
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