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| Hiking | 10.00 Miles |
660 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.00 Miles | 4 Hrs | | 2.73 mph |
| 660 ft AEG | 20 Mns Break | 5 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | In mid February - started on a cloudy day about 1:30pm from the Weaver's needle overlook parking lot off of the AZ88, due to my little Hyundai being a bad choice for dirt roads after a recent storm. I didn't know for certain whether day hikers are allowed to park there, but were zero signs regarding fees, passes, tow-aways or similar. I took the chance on this paved lot and had no problems with my car still being there at the end of the hike. It appears to be a popular shuttle starting point for equestrian users. To get to the actual trail, I started on the paved path to the overlook. Half way to the overlook point, an obvious connector trail veers off to the right - this is the entry-point to the hike; there was some post-holing from equestrian users, but not a terrible amount.
If you start from the same lot, the hike to garden valley down to hackberry spring via 1st water and back as a loop becomes about 10 miles; just be aware this is significantly longer than the regular 5-7 mi hike popularly posted under Garden Valley / Hackberry Springs. It took me around 4 hours for this hike, but I tend to hoof it. I would say 4-6 hours is good range to be safe.
After a 1.5 mile roller coaster of hills with epic westerly views of the superstition range, the connector eventually took me to 1st water Trailhead parking. Exiting the parking lot south, I took a left onto the dirt road and then immediate right for the entrance to Dutchman Trail #104. This part of dutchman roughly follows 1st water road for a short distance to the smaller Hackberry Spring parking lot where the 'official' loop begins - if you are doing a counter clockwise loop as I did. From there it is essentially the same hike people experience on the Hackberry Springs/Garden Valley Loop.
Once reaching Garden Valley about 90 minutes into the hike I experienced a bit of panic; behind me an ominous witches brew of low dark cloud cover and heavy winds formed out of nowhere and headed my way; by that point it was clear I was pretty much the only person out there; but then the isolation is part of why we do back-country hikes, right? As invasive thoughts about lightning and canyon flash floods began to fill my head - with only a camelbak and thin pullover with me, it finally began to clear up as I started descending out of garden valley and into the next canyon towards 1st water.
Two days prior the valley experienced a steady day of rain. Not having done a low canyon hike in the superstitions so recently after heavy rain, I wasn't sure what to expect. But 1st water was surprisingly dry, with lingering pools - some of it clear, some it pretty green; if I was doing an overnight there would have been enough water to filter. There were no issues keeping my feet dry following the creek to the bottom. After completing some boulder hops I was at the bottom of the canyon, lingered for a while chatting with a friendly backpacker over where hackberry spring is (we heard the water trickling but I couldn't find the source... someone clue me in!).
The hike out of 1st water canyon was a bit confusing to me, as I didn't realize beforehand it was going to be a fair amount of off trail for that part. I turned off onto the right-hand west fork of 1st water canyon - placing some trust in my GPS and stumbling over the river rocks, hopping a couple pools of fresh rainwater before meeting back up with the trail out... Surprisingly no cairns over there. When going solo and both the trail and cairns disappear it feels like a bit of an adventure; but it was clear there were multiple exits shortly down the creek. 65-70 degrees the whole time with cloudy skies - doesn't get much comfier than that! |
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