La Barge Battleship Saddle Loop

On Sunday, I did a hike in the Superstitions, the La Barge Battleship Saddle Loop.  This hike starts at the Canyon Lake Marina, following the Boulder Canyon Trail until it reaches La Barge Creek. It then heads south down the creek until it reaches a narrows with pools of water.  It then backtracks a bit and heads up to the saddle south of Battleship Mountain. I took a short side trip from the route at this point and visited the “stern” of Battleship Mountain in order to see what the opening moves of this class 3 territory look like. The route then heads to the west to Boulder Creek. From there, I rejoined the Boulder Canyon Trail which I took back to the trailhead.

A view of Battleship Mountain and Weaver’s Needle from the Boulder Canyon Trail.

Another look at Battleship Mountain. I’m still on the Boulder Canyon Trail, but am near the turnoff into La Barge Creek at this point.

One of the pools of La Barge Canyon. Prior to this the creek had been quite rocky.

Looking back down La Barge Canyon from the way I had came.

I turned around shortly after passing this pool.

At this point, I’m returning to find the trail up to Battleship Saddle. The saddle is in the sunlit section to the left. The red rock near the top of the photo is actually the starboard side of Battleship Mountain. The part at the far left in the photo would be the stern.

Looking north down La Barge Canyon on my way up to the saddle.  Battleship Mountain is on the left side and Geronimo Head is on the right side.

This is the “stern” of Battleship Mountain – it’s not as impressive as the “bow” which was shown in two of the earlier photos. If you look closely, you can see two hikers making their way up at the left.

A view of Weaver’s Needle from just below the stern of Battleship Mountain.

I’ve made it through the rocky part of Boulder Canyon now.  The GPS track that I was following routed me further down Boulder Canyon, but I opted to follow the trail instead.

This is the site of the Indian Paint Mine.

This is one of the walls of Geronimo Head.

Looking toward Canyon Lake on the way back.