February 17, 2017 - Peralta Trailhead Superstition Mountains - Bluff Spring Loop, Coffee Flat and Miner's Loop

The long hike was the Bluff Spring Loop which starts at the Superstition Mountain Trailhead sign on the northeast side of the parking lot. The trailhead trail turns onto Trail 104, Dutchman’s Trail.This hiking trail leads steadily upward past beautiful scenery various rock formations and vistas until it meets with Coffee Flat Trail at 1 hour and 10 minutes into our hike. The trail continues upward through rocks and switchbacks and past Miner’s Needle. At a saddle, the trail signs show a junction of Whiskey Springs Trail and Dutchman's trail. This is 2 hours into the hike and we continue on the Dutchman's Trail and wind down into a canyon. After many switchbacks down and upward out of the canyon, we reach a point at the end of the canyon where the trail switches back and follows the left side of the canyon. After crossing a saddle the trail then proceeds on switchbacks up and down on the right side. We reached a stream where we had lunch at 12:40, 2 hours and 40 minutes into the hike. Here we crossed the stream and started on Bluff Springs Trail, #235. This trail goes through a wash which had a trickle of water, then winds back up on a ledge where there are various formations of rock from a volcano that had collapsed into itself (caldera) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldera . The trail returns to the trailhead via a rocky trail leading down switchbacks. The length of the hike was 9.2 miles and took 4 hours and 20 minutes.

 
 

Along this portion of the trail, we saw a Gila Monster. These pictures from the website.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gila_monster  - youtube video and information about the Gila Monster. The start of the video looks like this picture.

Coffee Flat Trail and Miner’s Loop

The short hike started Dutchman's 104 then turned right onto Coffee Flat trail.

http://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/miner-s-needle-loop--3

The above site has pictures along Miner’s Loop Trail (Bluff Springs Trail).

Coffee Flat Trail

Miner's Loop

Peralta Trailhead-Superstition Mtns. 

Driving Directions: Go north on Hwy 79 out of Florence. Go left (west) on Hwy 60 at the Florence Junction. About 8 miles from the junction, at milepost 204.1, is the first traffic light. Turn right at this light and proceed through the residential area and past the school, then on the gravel road to the trailhead at the end, about 7 miles.  Pit toilets.

Long hike: Bluff Springs Loop, B+, 8.9 miles

Short hike: Coffee Flat C+, 6.5 mi.