The trail that goes out to Broadway Cave in the Superstition Mountains continues past the cave to a canyon. I've wanted to see whats out there ever since I went to Broadway Cave (which was over a year ago, I think). I got an early start since I knew it would take a while to get out to where I wanted to start exploring.
The parking area is only big enough for 4 or 5 vehicles. Fortunately, somebody was about to leave when I pulled up.
Broadway Cave is that hole on the right. The Superstitions look dull from this angle at this time of day.
The eastern end of the Superstitions.
I saw 5 other people near the beginning of the trail, which is about the most people you can see considering the size of the parking lot. There was a light breeze from the east the whole day, which served to blow away the sounds of suburbia. I hesitated to go on this trail because the last time I was on it I listened to yapping dogs and loud motorcycles the whole time. I didn't hear much of that this time.
I took another picture like this. That's two in the past week. I've about worn that out.
The views don't change a lot along this trail, so in a way it's a little boring, though this is a great way to be bored. It took me an hour to get to the part of the trail I wanted to explore.
The view shifts slowly as you climb the trail.
The trail enters a canyon.
Soon after entering the canyon, the trail comes to the remains of a hearth. The rest of the building is gone (assuming there ever was a building). It seems to be a popular destination. People stop there to eat a snack, and leave their trash. Maybe they think their mother will be by later to clean up after them.
Hearth at the canyon entrance.
Why did somebody bring a newspaper out here? The date on it is December 23, 2008.
It looks like whoever built the hearth dug a large hole.
I wandered around out there for a little while. The trail continued up the canyon, but it wasn't really a trail anymore. It followed the bottom of the canyon and so involved a lot of climbing over boulders. Slow going and tiring. I didn't feel like doing that, and I wanted to get back before sunset.
I came across several large "fields" of large boulders in the canyon. They didn't look like they had fallen from up above. It seemed strange how uniform the size color of boulders was in each one. One had dark gray boulders that were 2 to 5 feet in diameter. One had light tan boulders that were 1 to 2 feet in diameter. Nothing grew up between the boulders. The gray boulder field was about 6 feet thick; I know because somebody had blasted or sledgehammered their way through to the bottom (my theory is a guy proposed to his girl there, and they dropped the ring into the boulders and the guy spent 3 weekends out there with a sledgehammer to get it back).
A large field of large boulders.
A hole dug to the bottom of the boulders.
On the way back I noticed something orange about 30 yards to the right of the trail. I went over to investigate and there's another large pit there. There are a lot of these in the Superstitions and I always wonder why a person decided to dig right there.
A pit in the middle of nowhere.
I was almost back to the truck about 30 minutes before sunset when I saw a guy coming the other way. He was wearing camo and carrying a compound bow. He asked if I'd seen any deer. I said that I very rarely see deer. As we passed each other I said that I think I'm too noisy and scare them away. He kept walking, turned his head slightly, and said, "Have a nice day". What I heard, though, was "I'm done with you; go away and leave me alone". I continued walking and glanced back occasionally. When he was far enough away, I stopped, turned, and called out very loudly, "GOOD LUUUUUCK". Hopefully, I spooked any deer within half a mile. That was petty, but it was fun. Click below to see all of the pictures.
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| 2009_12_19 |
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