Broadway Cave, first attempt

That's right; attempt. As I often do when I hike a trail for the first time, I started too late and didn't carry enough water, so I didn't make it to the end.

It's a little strange how I found this trail. As I was driving out to Peralta road yesterday, I looked over at the Superstition Mountains and noticed a large cave. I'm sure I've seen it before, but yesterday it caught my attention. About that time a guy on a motorcycle went past me. I wondered if he had ever noticed the cave, or if he had even noticed the mountains. He never even glanced over there. It seems sad to drive by something so pretty without even noticing it. Anyway, this morning I was looking at random places in Google Earth. I had the Panoramio layer enabled so I could see people's pictures of various places. Most of those pictures are along highways. I have put a few pictures on Panoramio but I try to stay away from roads. I noticed that somebody that goes by ikanode does that, too, so I was looking through all of his pictures. He has some of Broadway cave, and the trailhead near there. Wow, there's the cave I noticed yesterday, and the coordinates of the trailhead parking lot. I knew where I was going that afternoon.

In this picture you can see the Flatiron on the left. Broadway cave is on the right. If you zoom in and look very closely you probably won't see a young man standing at the entrance of the cave because after being re-sized during the upload to the web album, he's only 2 pixels wide and 3 high. He isn't wearing a shirt, and neither is his fellow hiker. I didn't know they were there when I took the picture. I didn't know they were in any pictures until I got home. Even in the full resolution pictures, you can't tell it's people, but they are in several pictures and they moved around.

From 2008_10_19

The first part of the trail is long and has a gentle slope. The cave doesn't look very far away in the pictures, but that's misleading. The trail is difficult to walk on, too. When people walk on that trail, they loosen the dirt. Then when it rains, the dirt washes away and leaves the rocks. The rocks are loose and make for difficult footing. I bet I used 20% more energy by staying on that trail than I would have a couple of feet to the right or left of it. If everybody did that, though, soon the whole mountain side would wash away.

Since it's such a gentle slope, you don't really feel like you're climbing. I turned around and was looking down on Dinosaur mountain, though.

From 2008_10_19

This picture is taken from where I turned back. It seems close, but it's still quite a climb to the entrance. It would have taken at least another half hour to get to the entrance, and I would run the chance of running out of water before I got back to the truck. I probably would not have gotten dehydrated, but when you hike alone you don't take chances. The thing I was most worried about was walking back on that trail in the dark. I'd be lucky not to twist an ankle.

From 2008_10_19

The sky was full of high, thin clouds. They're the kind of clouds that spoil landscape photography (in my opinion). They look OK in the HDRI's, though.

From 2008_10_19

Those clouds can also make for very good sunsets. I need to practice getting sunsets with this new camera.

From 2008_10_19

Click below to see all of the pictures.

2008_10_19

Oh, I almost forgot. When I was about halfway to the cave, two young men passed me on their way back to the trailhead. They were not wearing shirts. They were not carrying shirts. I don't think they had shirts with them. I didn't see any water, either. One of them was on his cell phone and was saying, "I'm dying on this mountain". They didn't look distressed, though. They were smiling. There was only one other vehicle in the trailhead lot, and they were the only people I saw coming back from the cave.