Instead of taking the Dutchman & Coffee Flat trails out to Dripping Springs we thought we'd try something different and come in from the south though Queen Valley. Having scouted the area on foot ten days before we had a good idea of how far we would safely attempt driving with my Honda CR-V. We didn't get quite as far due to some rainfall in between but we did save two miles (four miles round trip) of hiking on a pretty warm day.

We headed NW around Buzzard's Roost then N into the Superstition Wilderness, passing a large water tank, a watering spring for cattle (frogs were all we saw there) and past a corral adjacent to the Superstition Wilderness. Once in the Wilderness it wasn't but five hundred feet and we caught the Coffee Flat trail just west of Coffee Flat itself. Heading east the trail took us out and back into the Wilderness on the way to Dripping Springs. Sad to say when we arrived the springs were not "dripping" at all, rather barely seeping if at all. So little to see it wasn't until later that it hadn't even occurred to me to take any pictures at the site.

On the return trip, rather than going back the same way we took what appeared to be more of a game/hunting trail along a wash, providing different scenery while cutting 1.5 miles off the return trip, along with another 400' of accumulated elevation.

Although I took no "dripping spring" photos, there was some nice (new-to-me) scenery:
http://www.changephoenix.com/10/2010-09-17DrippingSprings.html