Exploring the Superstitions

A 2018 Southwest Book of the Year

Arizona’s Superstition Mountains are like no other mountain range in the continental United States. The ancestral ground of the western Apache and sacred heights of the neighboring Pima, these mountains were once a veritable no-man’s land of soaring cliffs, dead-end box canyons, and eerie hoodoos of stone, marking them as one of the last places on earth that any person would dare to tread. While this range appears on the surface to be a veritable nature lover’s paradise with towering saguaro cactus forests, desert wildflowers, and roadrunners, it is also home to rattlesnakes, plants and animals that stick, sting, or bite, and modern gun-toting dry-gulchers. In fact, in the past century, the Superstition Mountains have claimed the lives of more than five hundred visitors, marking them as the West’s deadliest wild area. Part hiking guide, part history book, Exploring the Superstitions: Ghost Trails of the Mystery Mountain vividly brings the supernatural beauty, mystery, and majesty of this unique area to life.

Within the pages of Exploring the Superstitions, readers will first be swept up in the legends of the Superstition Mountains, encountering colorful historical characters such as 1840s gold prospectors, brave-hearted Apaches, and sly outlaws. Readers will encounter the native flora and fauna of the range, from poisonous rattlesnakes to rare flowers. And finally, an in-depth guide to every trail in the range will satisfy even the most experienced of hikers.

Including a foldout map and dozens of original photos, Exploring the Superstitions belongs on the shelf, or in the backpack, of every history buff and every veteran hiker.