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A CITY BOY FRESH FROM THE URBAN JUNGLES OF PHILADELPHIA, I WAS INSTANTLY drawn to the grandeur and mystery of the Superstition Mountains. I reveled in their brooding beauty, embellished by tales of Spanish conquistadores, marauding Indians, lost lives, and lost gold. The southern face of the range near Peralta Canyon became my special refuge, as I wandered its vast fields of chainfruit cholla and the saguaro forests on the upper bajadas. Summer brings the monsoons here, the great storms with their billowing clouds and magical rainbows. But the moments I treasure most in the Superstitions come in winter. As the sun moves farther south, into my favored realm, the light softens imperceptibly day by day, enveloping the cactuses, the washes, and the faces of the towering cliffs in a rosy glow. Ephemeral in reality, perhaps, but everlasting in memory.(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 28 AND 29) Mountains of mystery and myth, lost gold and broken dreams, the Superstitions inspired legends surpassed only by the range's rugged beauty.

stitions

(LEFT) A cumulus cloud casts a shadow on a higher layer of altocumulus clouds near the Peralta Canyon trailhead. The apex of the Peralta Trail offers a spectacular vista that includes Weavers Needle, the rocky promontory whose shadow, according to legend, points to the site of the Lost Dutchman mine.

(ABOVE) Stratus clouds form in Peralta Canyon in this early morning view from the Peralta Trail near Fremont Saddle. The trail gains 1,366 feet in elevation from its beginning to the Weavers Needle overlook at the saddle.