The Superstition Mountains

Empty, odd, vast, silent

"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."

Ernest Hemingway

Notes from my visit to the Superstition Mountains:

I like odd people, and I like odd places. I knew from the moment I saw them that this would be one of the most extraordinary places on Earth. From a distance, the mountains stood immense. A few motorcyclists passed by, their engines briefly disturbing the stillness of the open desert, but for the most part, the area felt desolate. The air was sharp and cold, the kind of chill that feels alive, and the clock read around 3 p.m.

The Superstition Mountains are unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. There’s an ethereal, almost otherworldly presence to them, a grandeur that defies explanation. As we approached, it felt as though the mountains pulled us into their depths, trapping us in a spiraling maze where direction and time ceased to exist. The wind roared across the barren landscape, and the world seemed stripped down to its most essential elements: the infinite horizon, clusters of cacti, dry, cracked earth, and a vast, empty sky that seemed to go on forever.

We were driving fast, the car slicing through the desert’s vast emptiness, the mountains looming closer with each passing mile. In the distance, the faint outline of a dam came into view, stark and solitary against the desert expanse. Inside the car, the pounding drums and grinding riffs of a rock band blasted through the speakers, merging with the rhythm of the moment. It was intoxicating—a perfect collision of speed, sound, and the overwhelming majesty of the landscape. The world felt boundless, untamed, and for a brief moment, we weren’t just moving through it—we were part of it.

It felt like we were living in a movie—unreal, spontaneous, and completely unbound. There was no destination, no plan. We simply followed the road, as if something unseen was guiding us, pulling us deeper into the heart of this land.

The moment reminded me of one of my favorite songs, Desert Cruiser by Truckfighters. There’s a part where the singer cries, “I’m running out of fuel,” with so much raw intensity it feels like he’s stepped into another plane of existence. That energy—that trance-like state where everything else fades away—perfectly mirrored what I was feeling. Time seemed to slow, and the vastness around us consumed every thought. It was a moment suspended in stillness, where you are reminded of how small you truly are in the face of something so monumental.

We’ve stopped for a moment. The silence of the desert was overwhelming. It pressed down on me, so heavy that even the intrusive worries and noise in my head—the ones that are always there—simply vanished. It was as though the weight of the place had silenced not just the world around me, but my very thoughts. That silence was crushing, yet strangely serene, a fleeting moment of calm in a life that is never still.

I loved being there, but it was unlike any place I’d ever been. It wasn’t just empty—it felt alive, humming with an energy I couldn’t explain. The land carried a haunting presence, as if it held the weight of everything it had ever witnessed. The rocks scattered across the desert felt ancient, imbued with silent memories of untold stories and forgotten tragedies. I’ve always loved collecting rocks, but this time, the moment I picked one up, a wave of regret washed over me. It felt as though the land itself was warning me, telling me this rock wasn’t mine to take—it belonged here, part of something sacred, far older and greater than I could ever comprehend.

As we drove further, the few people we had seen earlier disappeared. Soon, the landscape was utterly deserted, and it was just us—alone in the vast expanse. But it wasn’t an ordinary kind of emptiness. It felt charged, as though invisible eyes were watching from the shadows of the mountains. It was as if the spirits of ancient souls—or perhaps the Apache warriors who once called this land home—were still there, silently observing. The air felt heavy, thick with the weight of stories too ancient to grasp.

The strangeness of the place was undeniable. It was as though every grain of sand and every jagged rock carried a secret too immense to be uncovered. You could feel it in the air—a sense that something had happened here, something utterly violent, something sacred too.

The legends of the Superstition Mountains only added to the weight of the land. Stories of Antonio de Peralta, the Spanish explorer who ventured here in the late 1700s in search of treasure, speak of bloodshed and greed, of clashes with the Apache who fiercely defended their sacred territory. But even without those stories, the land itself seemed to remember.

These mountains weren’t merely mountains—they were something far greater as if carved from the blood of the earth. They stood drenched in darkness, cloaked in layers of unknowable mystery.

For a fleeting moment, we became part of their secret, swallowed by their immensity. It felt like a warning. A reminder of how fragile, how insignificant we are in the face of something so timeless, so immense, and so utterly unforgiving.

These mountains were everything I had been yearning for, a reflection of something lost and found within me. And I know, whether in days or years, they will call me back once more.