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- Apr 13, 2017
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So my childhood friend from Oregon came down with his SO this spring. We backpacked into the Superstition Wilderness area called Rogers Trough Trail/Canyon. There are significant primitive Indian ruins down there well worth the hike. Stayed two nights in late March and still pretty chilly at night with a touch of rain even. The road in is the longest 14 miles either of us could recall, all slow going with the last 4 miles mandatory 4WD. The 94 bronco made light work of it and we did see a Subaru in there, he must have gone pretty slow with that low clearance.
Me on the right. the ruins are near the far isolated rhyolite peak, the last 200-300 yards are bouldering over giant canyon rockfalls in the creek bed. Here's the story.
Primitive indeed compared to some ruins in the southwest but you can see some construction inside the caves and more is hidden in these pics. These are a couple hundred feet above the creek. And there's another group upstream a bit with a little more character. You have to look real hard for these or you could walk right by and never know they were there.
Typical oak juniper scrublands around 3000-3500' elevation
That's about halfway down from the caves.
A terrific camp site about 1 mile upstream from the caves, it doesn't get any better than this anywhere on the trail. Flat with grass on a large bench and real soil, not desert rocks. I had told these northerners to never camp in the flood zone, especially in stormy weather. People lose their lives every year doing that. You can see the high water marks easily and they are very high, 20' or better above the creek bottoms in narrow areas.
This is the other cave complex I mentioned. Looks a little more sophisticated but it's a bear for an old guy to get up there. 20 years ago when I was here there were no issues at all. SAD. Speaking of bears we saw sign everywhere, they've been eating juniper and manzanita berries and it seems to give them loose stools because you could hardly take a step without stepping in some. We hung our food. Never saw any or any other significant wildlife, even birds and squirrels were scarce and still too cold for snakes thankfully.
ETA I forgot to mention water. About a gallon per day per person even in this cool weather is safe. When it gets 100F + I don't know if you could carry enough and 115 would be normal in the hottest part of summer. There are many springs on the maps but they can't be trusted and you might have to dig. Lucky for us there were isolated pools full of green algae that we filtered and had plenty.
When we were younger it was a point of pride for us desert rats to not drink much and it was never a problem but now that's a little more risky and dehydration is a real threat. (I still carried some beer though)
Me on the right. the ruins are near the far isolated rhyolite peak, the last 200-300 yards are bouldering over giant canyon rockfalls in the creek bed. Here's the story.
Primitive indeed compared to some ruins in the southwest but you can see some construction inside the caves and more is hidden in these pics. These are a couple hundred feet above the creek. And there's another group upstream a bit with a little more character. You have to look real hard for these or you could walk right by and never know they were there.
Typical oak juniper scrublands around 3000-3500' elevation
That's about halfway down from the caves.
A terrific camp site about 1 mile upstream from the caves, it doesn't get any better than this anywhere on the trail. Flat with grass on a large bench and real soil, not desert rocks. I had told these northerners to never camp in the flood zone, especially in stormy weather. People lose their lives every year doing that. You can see the high water marks easily and they are very high, 20' or better above the creek bottoms in narrow areas.
This is the other cave complex I mentioned. Looks a little more sophisticated but it's a bear for an old guy to get up there. 20 years ago when I was here there were no issues at all. SAD. Speaking of bears we saw sign everywhere, they've been eating juniper and manzanita berries and it seems to give them loose stools because you could hardly take a step without stepping in some. We hung our food. Never saw any or any other significant wildlife, even birds and squirrels were scarce and still too cold for snakes thankfully.
ETA I forgot to mention water. About a gallon per day per person even in this cool weather is safe. When it gets 100F + I don't know if you could carry enough and 115 would be normal in the hottest part of summer. There are many springs on the maps but they can't be trusted and you might have to dig. Lucky for us there were isolated pools full of green algae that we filtered and had plenty.
When we were younger it was a point of pride for us desert rats to not drink much and it was never a problem but now that's a little more risky and dehydration is a real threat. (I still carried some beer though)
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