A few days ago I picked up Tom at Kiyomi's house and we drove out to the superstition wilderness, to a site not far from Tortilla Flats. It's a long drive out there, about an hour, straight out on the 60, and then route 88 through Apache Junction into the wilderness.
The edge of the superstitions is amazing. Tom said its the old massive caldera of a group of volcanoes, and it could very well be. It rises up out of the desert like something out of a Peter Jackson movie.
Tom doesn't talk much so we mostly rode in quiet out to the site. It's a beautiful drive out there, because once you leave Apache Junction, you get into the mountains and then you're in these twisty mountain roads, going around blind corners, and then out there there's the two lakes, Canyon Lake and Saguaro Lake, and you catch glimpses of them before actually crossing a system of bridges over them.
Tortilla Flat is a tiny village remnant, perhaps the remains of an old mining town, along the 88, which was dolled up for the western-seeking tourists complete with a post office and a saloon restaurant. The restaurant walls are lined with $1 bills, the lights are on wagon wheels, and the bar stools are saddles. That kind of a place. It's a bit of a misnomer- the town itself sits in a small valley surrounded by the extremely violent landscape around it.
Less than a half mile past tortilla flats, Tom said I should pull into a dirt pull out where there was a camp ground. I followed Tom a short distance out as he wandered off the trail towards the creek bed, and realized then, that it was going to be an off-trail kind of day.
I've actually not really done much off-piste hiking. For one, its not great for the desert for people to be just wandering through. There are micro-organism communities which live in the crust of the desert which are crushed by hikers walking over them. For another, there's a lot of brush, debris, cacti, drop offs, impossible descents and ascents, etc. off a trail. And nobody can find you either if you die out there.
But hey, why not. Tom's done it before, we have a GPS, and plenty of water. I swallowed my reservations and followed Tom. It ended up being a great hike. We hiked for about three hours, stopped for lunch on top of a huge dome, and hiked another three hours or so before making it back to the car an hour or two before nightfall. We crossed ravines, did a lot of scrambling up and down rock faces, followed windswept ridges. It's kind of nice actually. You see something you want to explore, and you just go there. It's not fast, and seldom easy, but you get to walk were people don't go.
The geology out there was amazing. I was picking up crystals off the ground. Lots of volcanic bombs from ancient volcanoes littered the desert. Ended up bring home a small collection. For lunch, Kiyomi packed us an avocado sandwich, a banana, and some trailmix, and I shared my raisins.
Saw a patch of desert torn up by rooting javelinas, and we startled two deer out of a ravine wash. It was a long day of hiking around.
Today, Saturday, I took mom and Larry out there to go eat at the tourist trap restaurant in Tortilla Flat. I do love the drive out there, far as it is. We sat next to some local geezers talking about the days before the dam, and when there was producin' farms out there. Someday, I want be the person who meets my 60 and 70 year old friends out for breakfast on a regular basis.
We had french toast, biscuits and gravy, and plenty of coffee. Its was all rather ok, not bad, but there is something I do really love with the combination of the cheezey wood shed building, the breakfast, and the canyon bottom in the cold morning light.
Did some bird watching on the way back to Phoenix, and hit the Eddie Bauer shop and I got some gloves on sale.
The edge of the superstitions is amazing. Tom said its the old massive caldera of a group of volcanoes, and it could very well be. It rises up out of the desert like something out of a Peter Jackson movie.
Tom doesn't talk much so we mostly rode in quiet out to the site. It's a beautiful drive out there, because once you leave Apache Junction, you get into the mountains and then you're in these twisty mountain roads, going around blind corners, and then out there there's the two lakes, Canyon Lake and Saguaro Lake, and you catch glimpses of them before actually crossing a system of bridges over them.
Tortilla Flat is a tiny village remnant, perhaps the remains of an old mining town, along the 88, which was dolled up for the western-seeking tourists complete with a post office and a saloon restaurant. The restaurant walls are lined with $1 bills, the lights are on wagon wheels, and the bar stools are saddles. That kind of a place. It's a bit of a misnomer- the town itself sits in a small valley surrounded by the extremely violent landscape around it.
Less than a half mile past tortilla flats, Tom said I should pull into a dirt pull out where there was a camp ground. I followed Tom a short distance out as he wandered off the trail towards the creek bed, and realized then, that it was going to be an off-trail kind of day.
I've actually not really done much off-piste hiking. For one, its not great for the desert for people to be just wandering through. There are micro-organism communities which live in the crust of the desert which are crushed by hikers walking over them. For another, there's a lot of brush, debris, cacti, drop offs, impossible descents and ascents, etc. off a trail. And nobody can find you either if you die out there.
But hey, why not. Tom's done it before, we have a GPS, and plenty of water. I swallowed my reservations and followed Tom. It ended up being a great hike. We hiked for about three hours, stopped for lunch on top of a huge dome, and hiked another three hours or so before making it back to the car an hour or two before nightfall. We crossed ravines, did a lot of scrambling up and down rock faces, followed windswept ridges. It's kind of nice actually. You see something you want to explore, and you just go there. It's not fast, and seldom easy, but you get to walk were people don't go.
The geology out there was amazing. I was picking up crystals off the ground. Lots of volcanic bombs from ancient volcanoes littered the desert. Ended up bring home a small collection. For lunch, Kiyomi packed us an avocado sandwich, a banana, and some trailmix, and I shared my raisins.
Saw a patch of desert torn up by rooting javelinas, and we startled two deer out of a ravine wash. It was a long day of hiking around.
Today, Saturday, I took mom and Larry out there to go eat at the tourist trap restaurant in Tortilla Flat. I do love the drive out there, far as it is. We sat next to some local geezers talking about the days before the dam, and when there was producin' farms out there. Someday, I want be the person who meets my 60 and 70 year old friends out for breakfast on a regular basis.
We had french toast, biscuits and gravy, and plenty of coffee. Its was all rather ok, not bad, but there is something I do really love with the combination of the cheezey wood shed building, the breakfast, and the canyon bottom in the cold morning light.
Did some bird watching on the way back to Phoenix, and hit the Eddie Bauer shop and I got some gloves on sale.
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