Gen sees the Apache Trail!

[Robert Schaller]

Frequent-poster Gen, from Quebec, visited the Phoenix area on Sunday, June 13th! We met about 8:30 Sunday morning, and on an almost-300 mile jaunt through the desert river canyons of the Salt River (along the Apache Trail, SR88 and SR188), she got acquainted with a bit of Arizona history and legend -- the stories of lost gold in the Superstition Mountains, the building of Theodore Roosevelt Dam and more. In trade, I got some great company and some French lessons!

Today, after being well-fed (I hope), she is headed on toward the southeast before working her way north toward her home. I figure she'll probably post a report as she finds electronic access along the way. Before leaving, we made certain she didn't get out of Phoenix without tasting the best barbecue west of the Verde River! Bob

I remmeber reading about the superstitions mountains when I was a kid, it's still one of my plans to go and look for the Lost Dutchman's mine (I think that's what it was called). Haven't heard the story for quite a while.

[Robert Schaller]

If you come to look for Jacob Walz's treasure, keep in mind he said it was in "the four o'clock shadow of Weaver's Needle." Now some say he wasn't really giving a useable clue, but the fact is the LEGENDS say that on another occasion, Apaches took an Army doctor back there and let him pick up some gold that had been stashed by the Peralta Party years before. According to his later recollection, the route they took was along a canyon bottom that is now under the waters of Canyon Lake, and that canyon runs right alongside of... Weaver's Needle (which the doc described in fair detail). I have seen that canyon with my own eyes, from the air.

Maybe Walz found a gold mine, or maybe he found a stash of Peralta party gold (what he brought back to Phoenix was reportedly so pure that some thought it had already been smelted). At any rate, no one has ever found any of it since.

If you come, look me up and we can do a seance on top of the old Deutschlander's grave (I know where it is) -- maybe he'll give us some direction from the other side...

But I doubt it. ;)