The Superstition Wilderness is an incredible place.  It's as wild and as rugged as anything you will ever find.  Anywhere.  The trails closest to the city are worn a few miles from each parking lot and then quickly become over grown, faint, rocky, and at times, flat out dangerous.  You can't see the prickly pear under the creosote bush or cedar branches, the cholla drives deep into your thighs as you try to sneak past the agave daggers and full grown men yell out whimpering cries as they try to pull out each spike driven into their flesh.  It's heaven.  In that insane kind of way like, "Look how deep this gash is!!"

Yet despite this, despite enduring this over and over again, these brutal stretches of beatdown that the Superstitions provide free of cost, I keep coming back.  I started in the Superstitions when I first moved here hiking the Siphon Draw trail straight up the mountain to the Flatiron, the imposing spire of rock that juts out of the mountain range, overlooking all of the glory that is Apache Junction.  It's a steep, rugged and imposing hike, short enough yet so much upper body needed it's not for the wary.  It was my introduction into Arizona hiking that quickly led to one after another adventures that took me farther into the area.  At one point I would literally drive out on the Apache Trail which borders the northern side of the Wilderness area and pull off along a slot canyon area and park.  Then I'd hop the guardrail and either alone or with my brother, we'd work our way up a river bed, side canyon or random cattle trail in the search of who knows what.  We'd find crazy rock formations, tiny slot canyons, rattlesnakes, random backpacker gear, and a lot of times, some incredible watering holes hidden deep in the impenetrable forest that is catclaw hell.  

So when I began to form a mindset that I could cover more ground if I just ran some of the trail instead of walking I started to see more, experience more and learn a lot more.  That led me to the interior of the Superstitions where I quickly found there to be an vast, expansive network of over 180 miles of linked trails.  You can literally get lost out there, just up and disappear.  Frontier men & women worked hard to eek out a living out there, some old houses still leaving their mark on the interior of the park, the upper elevations but generally, it's desolate, and incredibly beautiful.  It's the kind of place you can't help but think to yourself, "You know...I wonder what's on the other side of this valley" and then work your way back up the steep incline to see one more time, just what is beyond that last ridge.  Breaching the saddle and laying eyes on an entirely new valley, new canyons, new rivers that seem to stretch on forever is something a lot of people don't understand having never really seen something like that.  Or maybe they just don't care.  Maybe some people don't ever wonder what's beyond that mountain range, what's around that last bend that you should have turned around at.  I do.

So many people have taken off to search for old gold mines in the Superstitions, old miners have died trying for that last big score, treasure seekers still to this day are dying out in the desert looking for the famed, Lost Dutchman.  They never find it, hell, it could have been found 100 years ago and we wouldn't know.  Yet there is something about the Superstitions that has that affect on people.  The Search & Rescue team we came across in March in our 50 mile adventure out there was looking for three young guys from out of state that went missing the previous fall.  They found one guy, dead, at the base of a palo verde tree on the top of Black Mesa.  Not but 3 miles from a main parking lot and less than 1/4 mile from the Black Mesa trail.  There are still a half dozen bodies that were never recovered out there, hikers, gold seekers, tourists.  It's a tough place, it will beat you up but with every trip I come out I feel that much stronger.  Short or long those Supes are a beat down but with that beatdown comes some of the most incredible trails (used loosely), and some of the most scenic miles in the entire state.  I've said it before, and I'll repeat it here, it's the most beautiful place in Arizona outside of the Grand Canyon.  And it's less than an hour from Phoenix.  

With all the trips I've had in the Superstitions I've had my share of challenges, many more trips without issue but some that bear repeating.