2018 Superstition Mountains

Saturday, February 17

After breakfast Saturday, we headed for Apache Pass which follows an old stage coach route through the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix.  The road was 'paved' shortly after the turn of the 20th century, allowing folks to enjoy a drive through a  beautiful mountain pass.  Although sections had been more recently paved, parts of it felt like it might be the original road.  The road runs from Apache Junction up to the Roosevelt Dam, past the slightly rejuvenated ghost town of Goldfield, and Tortilla Flat, population 6, except for all the visitors.

Downtown (uptown?) Goldfield - looks like we might encounter a gunfight

Start of the Superstition Mountains

Weavers's Needle  - a prominent  landmark

 The improved gravel road through Apache Pass

Things got a bit exciting after we'd driven down to Canyon Lake (part of the reservoir system for the greater Phoenix area on the Salt River) for lunch.  In spite of flooring the foot feed, we barely made it up the steep hill and a check engine light came on. We pulled into the overlook at the top of the hill and not having found anything helpful in the owner's manual, called Sixt, the rental agency, (sketchy cell coverage) to see if we could trouble shoot the problem.  We were more than 50 long, narrow, twisty miles, with minimal cell coverage from the airport - and a very looong wait for a replacement car!  We opted to tough it out, hoping we could get ourselves back to civilization - we had 13 miles on the narrow, rough, gravel road to the Roosevelt Dam and some 80 from there back to town via better, if longer highways.

Apache Lake, one of  3 reservoirs west of the Roosevelt Dam

After a few tense miles, it looked like the car would run, so we stopped at the various sights - we weren't coming back this way - and planned to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.  The Roosevelt Dam viewed from the lookout is impressive - the tallest masonry dam in the country, with a recent  concrete addition raising the height to 357'.

Approaching the Roosevelt Dam

Roosevelt Dam bridge AZ 188

We took a short detour to the Tonto National Monument which contains the prehistoric archaeological pueblo ruins of the Salado people dwellings some 350' up the cliff.  Our old folks card got us in free, so we hiked the steep trail to check out the Lower Cliff Dwellings.  The ruins were in remarkable condition considering they were vacated 600 years ago.   Although part of the park system since early in the 20th century, they weren't protected from looters until after the 1920's and had significant looting and damage.  It's believed some 60 - 70 people lived at the sight, with many more in other cliff dwellings  in  the surrounding hills and others living down in the valley along the Salt River.  Their extensive irrigation system was still visible when the dam was built, flooding the river plain.  Like other Pueblo communities in the SW, the reason for the collapse of their society is still not understood.

Salado Pueblo at Tonto National Monument Cliff Dwellings

Salado Architecture information

Looking into some of the rooms at the Pueblo

We took the longer, well paved, smoother route back to town - not that it would have provided better cell coverage if we'd had more problems. By the time we started back, the check engine light was off, great for the trip back to town, but leaving us with concerns for the remainder of our vacation.   With the computer and internet available back at our condo, Leonard figured the problem out - a good thing since it appeared there was not another vehicle readily available (the rental company said they'd call us back when they had a replacement vehicle, but they never did).