If you’ve been following my channel for a while, you know me and my friends enjoy the great outdoors. If it’s the forests of Michigan, the Appalachian trail, or the smoky mountains, we always try to make time for a good adventure. We usually stick to the more woodsy areas, but in 2020 during the middle of lockdown my friend Abdullah and I decided to go on a trip to Arizona. We were so cooped up, we figured spending a weekend in nature away from all the craziness was the best thing for our mental health at the time. We had already lived together so driving up to Arizona and walking into the middle of nowhere wasn’t a risk to anybody. If anything, it was the most responsible thing to do.
Me and my buddies do this thing whenever we go on trips; we try to find something interesting about the location. If it’s a spooky back story or a myth of the region, we act as if we’re pursuing whatever the myth as a bit. It just makes it more fun because if you’re just hiking, the hike could be boring, but if you spend the entire hike pretending to be finding clues of the holy grail the down time is far more entertaining. I know it’s silly. It’s just a bit that me and my friends do. With that being said, when we looked up myths and superstitions in Arizona, it just so happens they have a mountain range named after it. So of course, we chose to hike the Superstition Mountains.
If you don’t know about the Superstition Mountains, it is said that in the late 1800’s there was an explorer named Jakob Waltz who supposedly found a gold mine with enough gold to make a man unimaginably rich. He claimed to know the location of it, but passed away before revealing it to anybody or claiming any gold for himself. That mine is now known as “The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine.” Before his death, he hinted that it was located in the Superstition Mountains near the Weaver’s Needle. Weaver’s Needle is a thousand foot high column of rock that forms a distinctive peak visible for many miles.
So naturally, being the dorks that we are, we chose to do the Weaver’s Needle trail which is about 13 miles long. You could get it done in two days, but we had planned to linger out there for three. It’s not the most difficult hike in the world, but you need to bring copious amounts of water with you especially when you go in the summer like we did. We were so excited because it was the first time out of our houses in months and we had a great bit to do the entire time. This weekend we’re treasure hunters. We even looked up silly hand drawn maps and silly riddles that were available online so we could pretend to do a solve once we got to Weaver’s Needle.
We had gotten that idea from my buddy Sam who had seriously went hunting for Forest Fenn’s treasure while he was in college, but that’s a story for a different time. So we packed up Abdullah’s Nissan Altima with enough food and water to keep a horse alive and one big tent that we planned on sharing. I was going to carry the water, he was going to carry the food, and we were going to split the tent between our packs. And of course all of the basic survival gear such as flash lights, binoculars, lighters, and tools. This trip just had an extra bit of excitement around it because it felt like we were escaping the real world and things would feel normal for a weekend.
When we finally arrived, I was actually shocked with how empty it was. We had suspected that other people would have the same idea as us, but I guess nobody else was ready to leave their house yet so we had the mountain all to ourselves. There was only one car in the parking lot other than ours. As we were unloading our stuff, a park guide came up to our car and introduced himself. He was really friendly and seemed pretty excited that there were actually people here. It must’ve been really boring to be out here everyday with nobody showing up. And for us, it was nice just talking to a stranger because we lived in a city where everyone was avoiding each other by 6 ft and being super antisocial.
So we were just chatting it up with this guy. We actually started hitting it off with this dude. He was only a few years older than us and grew up in Phoenix and was into all the same stuff we’re into. We found ourselves talking to this guy for almost 30 minutes after we finished unloading the car. He was giving us tips on what we should look out for and what views we can’t miss. He was just an overall good dude. He started jokingly complaining about how he was jealous that we got to go out that day and that he was going to be stuck in the guide’s cabin in the parking lot.
We start asking him why he doesn’t just go out because nobody’s here. He explains that he’s technically on the clock and he can’t go out unless he’s hired as a guide in case somebody shows up and is looking to hire a guide. So me and Abdullah immediately just ask him what his rate is and we’d be happy if he wanted to tag along with us. We hadn’t seen other humans in so long that we we’re just craving social interaction and we genuinely wanted him to come with. Me and Abdullah are both curious people and in the 30 minutes we had talked to him, he had taught us so many cool things about this mountain range already that we both agreed he would enhance this trip significantly. Plus, he’s cool and he doesn’t feel like a guide. He feels like he could be one of the buddies.
He immediately resists and says he doesn’t want to intrude on our trip, but we pressure him and try to force money into his hand as a joke. We pressured him enough that he could tell that we really meant it and wanted him to come with us. We weren’t just giving him a pity invite. So he finally obliged, but insisted that this tour was on the house. We just had to scan our ID’s and sign off that he was coming with us so all of his bases were covered. We like to be spontaneous and the addition of a knowledgeable guide just enhanced this trip significantly. So the guide throws together a pack for himself and lets us know that he really appreciates this and he’s only going to come out with us for today. Then he wants us to enjoy the rest of the weekend alone.
That seemed fair to us so we got to hiking. So I’m going to give you a quick insight on the clues that the Lost Dutchman left about the location of his mine so you understand the jokes that we were making on this hike. This is a super rudimentary breakdown of the clues that we were able to find. There are much more extensive, detailed reports on the clues of the mine if you want to search them up for yourself, but remember we were doing this as a bit so we just held onto the simplest ones. The first clue is that the mine is located off a trail that heads North into the Superstition mountains. The second one is that you’ll pass a stone cabin on the way to the mine. At a certain point, there will be a trick in the trail and you have to choose the right direction to hike, meaning a main trail splits in two directions and the one that looks less like a trail is most likely the way to the mine. Third, you will pass a stonewall with carvings on it that was reportedly carved by Apache tribes that depicts a man. Fourth, you’re able to see two large columns of rock from the entrance of the mine so if you see two large protruding columns you are most likely within range of the mine. The fifth one is that there is an arch of stone that almost looks like an eye and if you stand in the middle of the arch, you can see the mine. And if you turn the opposite direction, you can see Weaver’s Needle from the arch.
It wasn’t even 10 minutes into our hike before me and Abdullah started joking about keeping an eye out for that stone cabin. The guide immediately jokes, “Please don’t tell me you guys are treasure hunters. I really wanted to like you,” as if he was so sick of wanna-be treasure hunters coming into his mountains. We had a good laugh about it and we explained to him that we liked to do themed trips and we weren’t even remotely serious about looking for this mine. He got the joke and started telling us about the history of the gold mine which was actually very interesting.
He explained to us that people have been bringing large sums of gold out of this mountain range since the early 1800’s. The most famous one being Jacob Waltz, also known as the dutchman, but the people prior to Jacob Waltz had unimaginable stories, some reporting that the mine is guarded by the Apache tribe. The only reason one man was allowed to go to it was because he healed multiple tribe members of eye disease and they rewarded him by bringing him to mine blindfolded and taking as much gold as he could carry. He had no idea of the exact location. Others reported when they felt like they were getting close to the mine, somebody would shoot warning shots at them as though there was a sniper watching over it.
Some early explorers even considered the mountain range haunted with how many people went missing in search for gold. Not to mention how many people went mad looking for gold, including a particular man named Elisha Reavis who moved into the mountain range and went crazy with his obsession of finding the riches of the dutchman’s mine. He was so crazy that even the Apaches left him alone. Me and Abdullah were absolutely right. Inviting this guy was a great choice. It made the adventure feel like a walk through history. Obviously as you continue to hike, the talking dies down a little bit because it’s summer time in the Arizona desert and fatigue starts setting in.
We had been hiking for about two hours when we entered this area on the trail where there’s two beautiful stone walls on either side of us. The entire trail is only about 25 feet wide. We had already passed a couple of these and when we got into these passageways, it was such a relief because they were nice and cool. They provided shade that you couldn’t find anywhere else in the desert. So we lingered a little bit in this gap of the trail. The difference between this one and the ones prior, was on the right side of the trail built against one of the walls, it looked like there was some kind of structure that potentially could’ve been the stone cabin that the dutchman referred to in his clues.
So naturally me and Abdullah immediately ran up to this thing, pointing at it, and celebrating that we found the first clue because this is the fun of the bit. We get to find something and celebrate while we’re in the middle of a hike. We’re dancing around it, pointing at what is basically a pile of rocks that barely looks like it could’ve been the base of a stone house and acting as if we’re on our way to finding a gold mine. As we’re trying to get the guide involved in our celebration, I notice that he’s looking up above this passageway towards the ledge of the top of this wall that’s about 20 feet overhead. I look up above me and look back at him, confused about what he’s looking at. As I look back at him, I hear something coming from directly above us. It sounds like something is rolling so I step away from the wall a little bit and look straight up, but from where I’m standing there isn’t much shade and the sun is directly in my eyes. So I’m trying to look through my fingers to see what’s above us when all of a sudden something blocks out the sunlight. In that moment, I realized we’re about to get caught in a rockslide because there’s a massive boulder shaped like an egg falling directly towards us.
Luckily, Abdullah was looking straight up as well and all three of us scattered and avoided getting hit by this thing. As this thing was free falling, it caught an edge of the wall that slightly protruded out over the stone cabin. The collision between the protrusion in the wall and the boulder caused the boulder to split in half and the protrusion to be removed from the wall. It almost looks like when a chunk of an iceberg falls off and you can see the bright blue interior of the iceberg shining through. Me and Abdullah were absolutely shook because we were standing directly under where that boulder fell and we narrowly escaped being flattened by it.
The guide didn’t seem shook; he seemed angry and was continuing to try to get a better look above the ledge of the wall. We start asking him if we should get out of there because we’re assuming that this was a rockslide and if it happened once, it can happen again. But when the guide took out his pistol and started pointing it towards the ledge, it clicked in my head that he must’ve seen somebody and he thinks somebody pushed it in an attempt to hit us. Immediately when a weapon is drawn, the situation gets incredibly intense and there’s not much room for words because you don’t want to distract the guy that felt like he had a serious reason to take out his weapon.
So we just get behind him so if he has to unload that weapon, we aren’t down range to get in his way. Even though he’s pointing directly at the sky it still seemed like the right thing to do in case any other boulders came falling off that ledge. What was probably only a 30 second standoff felt like several minutes before the guide holstered his weapon and signaled us to jog with him out of the passageway. But during those several minutes, me and Abdullah both noticed that the point in the wall where the protrusion cracked off was glimmering. There were bright gold chunks inside of that protrusion clearly shining. It wasn’t a massive gold ore, but it was so clear that there was gold mineral laced throughout this wall.
We can’t mention it or draw attention to it while there’s a gun drawn and suspicions of an attempted attacker, but once we were out of the passageway, the first thing that Abdullah says is exactly what I was thinking. He just says, “Should we go back?” And the guide immediately says, “What are you talking about? We absolutely cannot go back in there.” So I butt in, assuming that he must’ve not seen the gold shimmering on that wall. I just say, “Dude, did you not see what was inside that wall?” And the guide replies, “Seeing fools gold isn’t a good sign in these mountains.”
My spider senses immediately go off and I start to think that this guide is playing reverse psychology on us, trying to downplay what we just saw so we’ll move on from it while he knows the location of it. He must’ve seen the skepticism on my face because he followed up by saying, “You don’t really think that’s the gold mine, do you?” And Abdullah replies with what I was thinking. “No, there was barely any gold in there, but it must mean that we’re close.” And just in that moment, what started off as a complete joke, just a running bit between a couple of friends became very real. The guide has clear concern in his face, but I’m still not completely sure it’s genuine.
He puts both of his hands up and takes a deep breath before saying, “Listen. That boulder falling was not a coincidence. Whoever or whatever pushed that over the ledge wanted you to see what was in that wall.” I immediately feel my bullshit alarms going off because there was not one car in the parking lot when we got here and he even said that nobody has been in these mountains for weeks. So I ask the obvious question. “Did you see somebody up there?” He just shakes his head no and continues walking away from the passageway, giving us no further explanation about what he saw or what he just said.
Luckily, me and Abdullah are on the same page and we catch up to him and start pressing him. He puts a halt to the conversation and firmly says, “There’s a rest point about one mile further. I’ll explain everything to you there.” One mile isn’t too far and we’re staying on the same trail, so it would be super easy for us to back track if we needed to. So we decided to play ball and follow him to the rest point. The dynamic of the situation was so different now. It started off so fun-loving and adventurous and playful, but now there was an odd tension between us and the guide. Not enough to have a confrontation, but enough to stay quiet and for me and Abdullah to shoot skeptical looks at each other about him.
We just started following along, but at this point we’d been out there for a few hours and we’re really starting to feel the heat. Most people hike this trail in October, but we decided to come out here in August where it’s damn near 100 degrees. So the fatigue is starting to set in, but there’s only a few hours left of daylight and we’re about to stop at a resting point so we just white knuckle it until we get there. The resting point was a nice shaded area that had rocks we could sit on and flowing water nearby to refill our canteens. A bonus was that there was no ledge above us where a boulder could be dropped on our heads.
We’re still being quiet, not chatting much, when the guide makes a gesture that comes off as a peace offering, asking for our canteens to go refill them in the stream nearby. We like that idea because it’s going to give us a moment to talk while he’s by the stream. Right when he’s outside of earshot, Abdullah goes, “I have a gameplan.” I’m thinking he’s going to suggest heading back right now which internally I didn’t think was a good idea considering the guide had our canteens. But he said something genius. He said, “Whatever explanation the guide comes back with, we just play along with it. Make him think that we believe him and we’re eating it up. Me and you go back to jokingly looking for clues so he thinks we are all on the same page, but we can get him to inspect clues in honor of the bit we were doing earlier.”
I loved this idea because it releases the tension of the group and allows us to continue to pursue the gold mine that we just found evidence of without any push back from the guide that wants to keep it all to himself. Plus he’s only going to be with us until tomorrow morning so we just have to wait him out. So we might as well convince him that we believe the lies that he’s peddling so he’ll feel comfortable enough to head back and give us two full days to actually find it.
We’re fully on the same page and we’re ready to pretend to hear him out when he comes back to the rest area. The first thing that he says is to drink this water sparingly because the stream wasn’t flowing heavily and the water might be scarce for the next couple days or until we can get to the next resting point. That’s advice I was willing to take seriously because dehydration is no joke. So I only take a couple sips of my water before storing it in my backpack so it stays cool. The guide is pacing for a few moments like he’s trying to gather his thoughts and me and Abdullah are just waiting for him patiently to start talking for us to execute our plan of fake understandment and obedience.
He starts off by trying to butter us up, talking about how much he likes us and how good of guys he thinks we are. I could tell he’s ready to start talking about something serious when he sits down on a rock across from us. He says, “I’ve seen and heard about too many cases of people going missing in these mountains searching for this gold. I’m begging you guys to not become one of them. What you saw in that wall is fool’s gold. It’s a mineral called Pyrite and it holds little to no value. It sure as hell isn’t the sign that you’re close to the mine.” Me and Abdullah start giving him the understanding nods, trying to sell to him that we believe him and he continues:
“There’s hundreds of cases of missing persons in these mountains and they all have various causes of death, from dehydration to falling off cliffs and in some cases, more than you’d imagine, they find skeletons with their skulls almost a mile away. And for serious groups of treasure hunters, the most common is gunshot wounds from behind at close range, almost as if someone that they trusted did it to them. The only common denominator in every case where there’s a survivor to tell the story is that they came across fool’s gold. These mountains have a weird way about them, like they mean no harm to the individual just seeking the natural beauty they have to offer, but they’re ruthless to those who are searching for something that is not theirs. I’ve seen things in these mountains that I cannot explain, and I refuse to let you two become its next victims. So I need you to promise me that we’re here just to have a good time and you’ll forget about that fool’s gold.”
Me and Abdullah are putting on our best poker faces, just agreeing with every word he says, but we know for sure that he just doesn’t want to split it three ways. So we make our promises and we make our amends and I wait for the right moment to crack the first joke. I just say, “We could still joke about it right?” And the guide laughingly replies, “Yes. We can keep doing the bit,” before he slaps his thigh and stands up. “Well, we gotta keep moving so we can get to Weaver’s Needle before sun down.” We let him lead the way and me and Abdullah trail behind a little bit so we have freedom to keep our eyes wandering for clues and are out of his earshot in case we need to whisper. We spend the next stretch of the hike with our heads on a swivel, trying to find any landmarks that resemble any of the clues. We’re not taking much because this stretch of the hike has a slight incline and it was starting to get very difficult; difficult to the point where I start losing interest in the clues and the gold and I’m just trying to keep one foot in front of the other.
It’s only about an hour from sunset when we take a quick stop in some shade and I finally look up from my feet after about a half hour of just staring at the ground when I see two very distinct rock formations to our left. They look like a two prong fork sticking out of the top of a hill. I’m staring at them for a few moments when I realize why they drew my attention and that dutchman’s clue goes through my mind. “There are two columns that can be seen from the entrance of my mine.” And these are two distinctly vertically protruding columns of rock.
I take a moment to gather myself to make sure I draw attention to it with the right energy. I’m mulling over if I should act kind of excited or really excited. I came to the conclusion that I should act really excited like we did when we found the stone cabin to be over the top and make it seem as if we’re going back to doing the bit. I start hopping up and down and hit Abdullah on the shoulder, while pointing at the columns like I’m an excited ape trying to communicate with a human. While I’m jumping up and down, I’m fading towards that side of the trail and I notice that there’s a trail split right here, but the trail going the direction towards the columns is faint. It’s not nearly as prominent as the main trail. In my head, we found the trick of the trail that leads towards the columns on the hill, but I don’t draw attention to that. I try to feed into the bit by asking the guide if he could take us off trail to the top of that hill so we could take a picture with the columns.
I felt like the touristy aspect of it would persuade him and it did. He was amused by the way I was jumping around and said it seems to only be about a 15 minute detour. So if we really wanted to go up there he’d happily take us. We let him lead the way again and I started nudging Abdullah with my elbow, shooting my eyes toward the ground so he’d notice the faint trail. And I could see it in his eyes when it registered and he gave me an excited shove on the shoulder and whispered, “It’s the trick of the trail.”
This just further reassured us that the gold in that wall was legit and we might actually find this thing because it’s not like the second rest area was an established rest area. There was just a little bit of shade and a faint trail off to the left. If it wasn’t so hot, we never would’ve stopped at it. But now we had to figure out how we were going to buy time at the top of the mountain to find the next clue. We’re both so excited so we picked up the pace of our hiking and the guide picked up the pace because he didn’t want this detour to be too long. So when we got to the top, I quickly realized that the heat is heating me hard and I’ve been too sparing with my water. Because once we got to the peak and I started taking in the panoramic view of the landscape around us, I got a wave of anxiety from my heart through my face and I got a bit lightheaded.
So I take a seat for a second facing the way we came from to gather myself for a moment and I can see the entrance to the pathway with the stone cabin in it from a distance. Like I said, we were on a slight incline since we left there so we almost had a birds eye view of where we came from. I see a little bit of movement right near the passageway. So I immediately opened my backpack that I was originally opening to grab my water and I reached past my canteen to grab my binoculars. Abdullah’s behind me playing up the bit, distracting the guide, doing an all out photoshoot near the columns so I have a moment to investigate.
I planned on creeping on whoever was in the passageway and then using the binoculars to search for our next clue while the guide was preoccupied. I put the binoculars up to my eyes and I’m trying to find the source of the movement and I realized I could see the top of the ledge where that boulder had come from and I scanned it until I came across a man. He was standing on that ledge, looking directly back at me. He looks like an average guy, but there’s something off about him and it hits me. He’s not wearing hiking clothes. He’s dressed like a regular guy.
So I’m just staring at this odd man staring right back at me, but there’s no way he’s actually staring at me because he doesn’t have binoculars on. I remove the binoculars from my eyes just to be sure and without them, he looks like a tic tac. I can’t see him at all. I can’t tell which way he’s looking or that he’s even a man from this distance. So I put the binoculars back to my eyes and this time, he slightly tilts his head and raises his eyebrow as if he was aware that I had just put the binoculars back on him. I start to get a horrible feeling in my stomach and another wave of anxiety through my chest and face when he lifts his hand up and waves at me. But he did one of those “Miss Universe” waves, where they just cup their hand and twist their wrist really delicately.