I hadn’t been backpacking in a while, so I organized a trip with a few friends to the Superstitions. Laurent, Scott, and Kim joined me on a trip to Reavis Falls, a 140-foot waterfall in the middle of the rugged Sonoran desert. We packed up my XTerra with 4 people, 4 dogs, 4 packs, a cooler, a food bin, and firewood and hit the road at around 2pm on Friday. We drove up through Oracle, Winkelman, Globe, and Roosevelt and came down the Apache Trail to meet up with Forest Road 212. We camped near the trailhead on a little loop off the forest road, where we had a great view of the canyon below, Apache Lake on the bottom and Four Peaks on the other side. We set up camp, started a fire, watched the sunset, and cooked dinner–which included s’mores of course!
Laurent hit the trail at 4am on Saturday to try and catch some perfect light at sunrise for his photography thing, while the rest of us took our time making breakfast and getting going. We hit the trail around 9am and met up with Laurent a couple hours later where the trail forks to Reavis Falls. We dropped into the canyon below and arrived at a strong-flowing Reavis Creek. We ate lunch, set up camp, played fetch with the dogs, and relaxed a bit before hiking the final half mile or so to the falls. After taking lots of pictures (including a vertical panorama I stitched together), we headed back to camp to gather firewood. That night was another fun night with great food, a great campfire, and a brilliant starfield–we even spotted a couple shooting stars.
On Sunday morning we did the tough slog out of the canyon and from the ridge, back down to the XTerra. The sun was out, unlike Saturday morning, so the wildflowers were blooming a lot more. We decided to drive out towards Apache Junction and through Florence to get back to Tucson, so we’d be driving a loop. We were thinking of getting a burger & beer at Tortilla Flat, but once we saw how many tourists were out for a Sunday drive and jamming up the parking lot we decided to keep going. We settled for Carl’s Jr. on the way out of Apache Junction, where I devoured a well-earned Bacon-Guacamole Six Dollar Burger, large fries and large Dr Pepper.
All in all, a perfect trip: two great campsites, a beautiful (and tough) hike, wildflowers blooming, water flowing over a 140-foot waterfall, and best of all, great company. The pictures are definitely worth checking out!
