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.

November 11, 2016 - Peralta Trail to Geronimo's cave to Dutchman's Trail

Hike to Geronimo’s Cave up Peralta Canyon Trail, Cave Trail and down back onto Dutchman’s Trail. It was a beautiful day for a hike. We arrived at the Peralta Trailhead at about 9:45. We hiked as one group again this week. The trail crossed several washes at the beginning, then we started to climb and enjoyed the scenery of volcanic rock and hoodoos. Our fellow hikers noted a few arches when looking up at the right angle. The crop of rocks we were heading toward included Fremont Saddle. There is a spectacular view of Weaver's Needle at the top of the climb where we stopped for lunch.

The hike continued around the back of the mountain up Cave Trail toward Geronimo's Cave. The trail is not marked well because it is not well traveled; we followed the GPS and cairns in order to detect the trail. We climbed up a steep portion of slick-rock to the cave where we could see the charcoal from fires previously lit. We felt like we were on top of the world. A few members of the group scouted out the trail and we followed the GPS and cairns down the slick-rock. We crossed over to the east side of the ridge that overlooks Barks Canyon. Then we hiked back north again and made several switchbacks to the lower ridge. This is still Cave Trail at this point. This was tricky maneuvering and it was very important to have good hiking boots to have traction. As we made our way down the trail there was a very important “T” in the trail where Bluff Springs Trail and Dutchman’s trail connect. Here is where we turned right onto Dutchman’s Trail that led to the parking lot. Because of the elevation and navigation of the slick-rock, it took us longer. The group worked together on this hike to look for cairns and to help each other on the slick-rock. Overall it was a great adventure!

These websites have interesting descriptions of the hike.

https://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=24

http://www.backpacker.com/trips/arizona/phoenix/phoenix-az-geronimo-cave-via-peralta-trail/waypoints/#scroll-to

  


  




  


   

                                                                                                                                      

              








                                                                                          

Weaver's Need

                

                                                 

                                           

Geronimo's Cave

           

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 trail-head at the end, about 7 miles.