Hieroglyphics Trail

Tonto National Forest

Click for map.

The Hieroglyphics Trail caught my eye while looking over the map for my previous visit to the Superstition Wilderness. Nothing happened with it then, but it will now. There is actually a way up to the high point of the same ridge I was on a few days ago along unmaintained use trails, but I am only looking for an evening hike to the spring today. Parking is available 5AM to 10PM after which cars might get towed, so I guess no overnight trips can start from here. Signs at the trailhead talk about the history of the trail and how the community has managed to get it where there was once access only by trespassing, but nothing about preservation of the petroglyphs (they are not known to actually be hieroglyphics) from careless visitation even though they are the destination of the official trail.

Both the Hieroglyphics Trail and the western section of Jacob's Crosscut start here. Information is directed at the second.

So through the cattle gate and up the hill I go to the well signed junction. I feel a little bit of familiarity about the hills to the east although I was looking at them from quite a different angle before. The trail climbs a little higher after taking the left and there is another cattle gate at the wilderness boundary. At least there should be no cattle spending the day rubbing at the petroglyphs.

To the west past Hog Canyon is The Flatiron once again.

Hieroglyphic Canyon up ahead looks like it might already be losing the light.

The hills east across the saguaro cactus forest could be just a little bit familiar.

Entering the Superstition Wilderness. This is a very well traveled trail.

The rocks are picturesque even without "hieroglyphics" decorating them and the wildflowers are out and about. Coreopsis and blue dicks seem to be the majority, but there are many others. Once just a little into the sheltering walls of the canyon, the vegetation changes and cat claw starts up. The large maintained trail leaves no danger from it or cactus.

Some lovely vertical red faces in the rocks near the canyon entry.

The blue dots all around are mostly blue dicks. Some are also phacelia.

Growth is quite thick within the canyon.

I can hear water flowing and it even seems like a lot. The trail wraps around a big rock with six mortar holes, then climbs up and vanishes into some rocks. A beautiful stream flows through the rocks and the "hieroglyphics" are visible on many of the surfaces across it. There is quite a lot of it, and still not one word about maybe not climbing over them or adding your own.

The mortar holes the trail wraps itself around.

The stream at the end of the trail is pretty enough for a destination just on its own.

A rock panel showing many animals and quite probably some signs of abuse.

The petroglyphs seem to be on every surface now washed by the creek on the far side and there are a few more on the near side. I find I have to examine each rock carefully before stepping on it. There are a few I might have missed and stepped on otherwise, especially on the near side where they are less expected.

Different motifs with some wiggles in this area.

The spring is supposed to be another 800 feet or so up the canyon, so not all that far. Trail after the petroglyphs is thin and marked by cairns and numerous. I pick one that seems to be staying out of the stream, mostly. Maybe that isn't quite the right choice for trying to find the spring, but it keeps my feet dry. Actually, it is quite high as I pass where the spring is marked on the map and the sound of water has already become distinctly behind me and fading. It must be the one going for the high point. There are some thinner trails climbing up from the creek from time to time, so I take one of them back down to the nearly dry bed. There is certainly no sign of the sort of flow that lies below here.

The dancing melodious stream has become a dry gully.

Working my way down in the stream bed, there is a first a stagnant pool, then a sudden flow of water. It seems to grow quickly over about 10 feet of the stream bed before gaining the glory of the flow seen a short way below. This is a great spring that matches the gusto of Charlebois Spring. No wonder folks lived here and marked the rocks with their everyday activity and their art long ago. Now I wonder what I missed when I visited Charlebois.

Water makes me hopeful it is the spring, but it is just a stagnant pool.

A little water flows into this spot and a lot more flows out the channels. Water multiplier rock or a spring, the second seems more likely.

I continue to make my way down the channel, now full of water. It is only a little more challenging as it was in the dry channel and now it seems to be an endless series of beautiful pools.

Water and erosion make such shapes as we find pleasing.

There is other beauty too.

A string of pools and pretty easy rock hopping along them.

Once back to the petroglyphs, I carefully select a route up onto the rock slab where the trail ends to take it back. The sun is setting, a near full moon is rising, and the lights of Gold Canyon are starting to shine. There are a few others out on the trail still, but they too are heading back.

One last savor of the beauty of water in the desert.

The moon rises again and again as the canyon walls change, but high in the twilight when the canyon drops away.

West to Phoenix suburbs shining against the Gila Bend Mountains.

*photo album*



©2019 Valerie Norton
Written 27 March 2019