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| Brad's Water Superstition Wilderness, AZ | |
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| | Brad's Water Superstition Wilderness, AZ | | | |
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Brad's Water Superstition Wilderness, AZ
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| Backpack | 28.40 Miles |
7,547 AEG |
| | Backpack | 28.40 Miles | 3 Days | | |
| 7,547 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | This was a three day two night backpacking trip with the day two destination being Brad's Water, a little known permanent source of water located past the intersection of Red Tanks and Hoolie Bacon Trail in Brad's Canyon.
We really didn't get that early of a start on Saturday, but we were in no rush. We chatted with Joe the volunteer trail guy and then made our way to La Barge Springs, where we planned to grab some water to bring to our camp near the Upper La Barge Box. We ran into a large group of teenagers with three guides, who were part of some second-chance program in Colorado, they were spending 25 days in the Superstitions, with resupplies at various trail heads. When we saw one of the guides she was looking for La Barge Spring, and was very happy after we pointed the way. They had spent the last four days dry camping from Tortilla TH, Hoolie Bacon and down through the Upper La Barge Box (I am assuming this is when the troubled youth decided it appropriate to tag the Hoolie Bacon trail sign, thanks guys..stay classy, hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Supers). Despite the tagging, I was still impressed with the group, as they had been living off really nasty watering holes for four days when we ran into them and the night before one of the guides had to return nearly all the way to Tortilla to get water from a spot they had found on the second night. We experienced the same fate when we arrived to our campsite, we made decision to go back to La Barge after examining our water options. However, first we did some exploring and checked out some leads from Wally, which we were successful, however, that is really all I can say about those finds. We finished day one with head-lamps because of the commute to get water, it was during this trip back that both of my dogs managed to get sprayed by a skunk, needless to say, they both slept outside.
Day two amounted to a pretty leisurely stroll to Brad's Water via the Upper La Barge Box. I stopped and explored a couple of caves high above trail, but nothing of real substance in either cave. Brad's water is located in Brad's Canyon and to be honest the only real attraction is the water, its a pretty barren area with not a lot going on. I had only been to Brad's Water in the winter prior to this hike, so I decided to go inside and do some exploring. The water is really not that deep, about neck high in spots and it the cave/mine is not overly deep either. My exploring was going well until I made my way to back of grotto to grab a stray cooler. I just touched the ceiling as I made my way back and a fairly large section of rock came crumbling down into water, that was my signal to get out of there. Temperatures seemed to be even warmer the second night, great camping weather.
Day three was a pretty standard hike out Whiskey Springs Trail to the Dutchman, although, I was bummed I took that route as I missed Wally who I knew was doing a clockwise loop of Whiskey Springs and Red Tanks. However, I did run into Larry coming down Whiskey Springs, he recognized the dogs, as most do and we chatted a little. Temperatures got a little warm on that long mundane stretch of Dutchman, which the dogs were very happy to finish. |
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Autumn Foliage Observation Isolated
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