Its going to take us 7 miles of bumpy dirt road just to get to the start of the Peralta trail. You ready? Let’s go!

Ever wonder how things get their names ? Who was Peralta and why was a trail was named after him?

* I’m going to tell this basic story to you as my friend not as a teacher or some expert. These are all generally agreed upon facts if you go and look it up. The story is cool so I encourage you to read a full book about the subject from someone who maybe is an expert for all of the details!

Ok so back in 1845 Don Miguel Peralta travels to the Superstition Mountain in search of hidden gold he has heard stories of. He finds it. Don’t ask me how. I have no clue how he found it.

There’s enough gold that he wants to go and get workers. A lot of workers. So he covers up his mine and then uses landmarks to help him remember how to get back. He thinks one peak looks like a Sombrero so he calls his mine “Sombrero Mine”.

The Apache believe this same mountain that Peralta is digging in to be the home of their Thunder God. That fact alone should tell you this is not going to go well for Peralta.

Peralta comes back with hundreds of men. Now for me it was learning this fact when I realized Peralta is not poor. I don’t know about you but I cannot go and round up hundreds of men and mules and supplies and all that is needed to take hundreds of men up into a mountain to dig for gold!

When Peraltas workers see the “Sombrero” they think it looks more like the “Finger of God”. Later it is named “Weavers Needle”.

So Peralta and his men mine for 3 years! Gold digging! Real life gold digging! 3 years!

The Apache are beyond mad. They plan an attack.

Peralta gets news of this and decides it’s time to pack it up and leave. They load up as much as they can carry and head down from the mountain. Straight into the Apache.

The Apache kill all of them and dump out the gold concentrate Peralta’s mules carried.

A few years later the US Army comes upon the scene of the massacre and bury what remained. Peralta’s body was not found.

Like I said this is a VERY interesting story that I just gave you the short version of in hopes you will go and get a book like “The Story of Superstition Mountain and the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine” by Robert Joseph Allen.

Now you ready to hike the actual trail?