Sunday October 29, 26.7km/16.6mi

Roosevelt Lake Marina (450.0/2210ft) to Pine Creek (466.3/4640ft) (AZ) +0.3 cemetery trail

We slept in until 6:30, and then wandered over to the store at 7am to get some breakfast items. The selection was pretty slim, so I ended up with this:

The cereal and juice were good, but the breakfast burrito was mediocre. We finally packed up and headed out at 9am.

On the way back to the trail was an ancient cemetery, and we stopped in for a visit.

Yup, lots of bodies. Perfect for Halloween!

Soon after, we rejoined the AZT, and started our long gradual uphill hike. We stopped at a flowing creek to refill our water along the way.

The first hour was on a dirt road, which was a little hot and sunny.

There were plenty of saguaro cacti along the way, including this odd specimen.

The road went right by many of the cacti, which were fun to see up close.

Eventually we left the road, enjoying a trail for the rest of the day. There seemed to be plenty of water along this section, and we stopped again at a large metal tank.

Somebody had drawn some cute chalk artwork all over the side of it! And perched upon the edge of the tank was a tiny little frog.

We climbed gradually alongside Cottonwood Creek, and it was nice to be in the shade.

Eventually the creek faded out, and we traversed a large meadow.

Higher up, the meadow turned into an old jeep road.

And we followed the road up and up, sometimes it was steeper than any part of the trail.

When the road ended, we took a break at the trailhead area, to admire the views of the Superstition Mountains just to our south.

It was getting pretty windy, so we didn’t stay long. A minute later, we entered the Superstition Wilderness!

The views from up high were pretty great, and we could see all the way back to Roosevelt Lake.

We walked a ridgeline for over an hour, and it was pretty windy.

Later in the afternoon, the trail decided to do a 1,000 ft drop into a canyon, just to climb right back up again.

I got one last view of the cliffs before we descended.

Going down….

By the time we emerged on the other side of the canyon, it was sunset and the hills were glowing orange.

We made a quick stop at a water source, and the water was extremely green looking, but it should filter ok. We hiked another mile, using our headlamps for the last 10 minutes into camp. It was a nice little campsite nestled under some ponderosa pines, which was perfect for this windy night.