Superstition Mountains — The Flatiron Climb, Lost Dutchman Legends & Goldfield Ghost Town

A jagged wall of eroded volcanic rock rising abruptly out of the desert floor east of Phoenix, the Superstition Mountains are the Valley's most dramatic wilderness and the setting for Arizona's most enduring legend — the lost gold mine of the "Dutchman," Jacob Waltz, whose hidden bonanza has drawn treasure hunters into these canyons for well over a century. This single-day escape centers on Lost Dutchman State Park at the mountains' western base, where the classic Siphon Draw trail climbs into a natural rock amphitheater and, for the fit and determined, all the way up to the Flatiron formation on the skyline. Below the peaks, the day rounds out with the whimsical, wooden-boardwalked Goldfield Ghost Town — a reconstructed 1890s mining settlement with mine tours and a narrow-gauge railroad — and the Superstition Mountain–Lost Dutchman Museum, which separates the fact from the folklore. It is a full day of granite-and-cactus wilderness and Old West storytelling, all within an hour of downtown.