Massacre Grounds

Thanksgiving Tuesday is coming to a close here at our house, and we'll be working on turkey leftovers for the rest of the week. We celebrated early due to the homeschooling parents' crazy work schedules, but the good news is that both Mom and Dad will be off for Christmas this year for the first time in three years. Woohoo!

While the turkey was in the oven, we took a short hike to the Massacre Grounds along the northwestern slope of the Superstition Mountains off of First Water Trailhead. The Tonto Forest Rangers have closed the dirt access road to the Massacre Grounds, but the trail can still be reached by parking in the Crosscut Trailhead parking area, and heading southeast along the dirt trail following the many rock cairns. Here are a few shots of the ones I photographed along the way. We all thought this was a cool way to keep track of a pretty unused trail. We never saw a soul the whole afternoon. The entire trail with the new trail access is about 5 miles round trip with approximately a 1000 foot elevation gain with great views. We could see Four Peaks and even the Phoenix skyline distantly to the far west.

The Massacre Grounds take its name from the alleged massacre of the Peralta mining family by the Apaches around 1848 because the Apaches held this part of the Superstitions as a sacred place of the "Thunder God," and the Peralta family continued to mine there and transport the gold back to their home in Sonora, Mexico. There are many different versions of the story, but it is thought that after the massacre, the Apaches dumped all of the Peralta gold in this area, and subsequent miners have attempted to locate it here. As with all of our Tuesday trips, we try to make it as educational as possible, and we frequently remind the kids, "Hey, you could be in school right now," but they really liked this trip to the Massacre Grounds on Turkey Day because of the relation to the massacre of  "Alfred the Turkey" (I don't know why they started naming the turkeys -- we buy them wrapped in the grocery store just like most people do.) Anyway, Happy Turkey Massacre Day, for those of you that have not yet celebrated! Hope you, too, can enjoy a nice Thanksgiving hike!