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This is a hike on the West Pinto Trail from Rogers Trough Trailhead to the Miles Trailhead in the Superstition Wilderness. It's at least a 9.4 mile hike one way and takes. It can be longer if you explore along the way such as: the trough at Roger's Troughs, Roger's Spring, Iron Mountain Spring, the area around Silver Spring Cabin, the circular corral at Oak Flat, and the shed and corrals at Miles Trailhead. Plan on 6 to 8 hours depending on how much you explore. Roger's Trough Trailhead requires high-clearance and 4WD. You may be able to get to Miles Trailhead with a 2WD, moderate clearance, lightly loaded passenger car but 4WD high clearance will be safer. Conditions change with every rain and every rock slide.
Due to the long backroads between the two trailheads, this isn't feasible as a car-shuttle hike. We did it as a key-exchange hike. You can also hike in halfway and back from each trailhead on different days. The West Pinto Trail gets little traffic and was overgrown in spots. Don't hike this alone--it could be weeks or months before anyone else hikes it. I strongly suggest wearing long pants and shirt and carrying a GPS with Michael Thorne's GPX tracks of the Eastern Superstition Wilderness in it. If you lose the path in heavy brush, a GPS with the hike route in it will tell you which direction to head to find it again.
There are two side trips near Roger's Trough Trailhead that may interest you. The trough and a corral at Roger's Trough is about 300 feet northeast of the start of the West Pinto trail. Roger's Spring is nearby and about 250 feet off the trail. The well was excavated by Ron Feldman under a Treasure Trove permit in 2004. It has been reported that nothing was found---the link takes you to a long page about Supersition Wilderness treasure hunting, so search for Ron Feldman to find the paragraph.
I didn't have time to stop and look around at the map location for Iron Mountain Spring but I did see a campsite, fence, and rusted metal. Another possibly interesting spot, is the map location for Silver Spur Cabin. The cabin is shown on the map as 0.1 mile south of the trail. There were some stones and wood laid out in a square near the trail. I don't know if that was the location of the cabin or if it was just laid out by someone making a campsite.
Exploring Oak Flat is worthwhile--especially if you intend to come back later and hike any of the other trails in the area. Four trails go through Oak Flat: West Pinto Trail, Spencer Spring Trail, Campaign Trail, and the Cuff Button Trail. The start of the Cuff Button and Campaign trails are not easy to find from the West Pinto Trail but the trails become clear once you get a couple hundred feet north. The Campaign Trail heads north up a hill from the northwest corner of the Circular Corral. The Haunted Canyon Trial heads north not from the creekbed on the eastern side of the corral but a different creekbed that's 500 feet east of the corral. In any case, you'll want to visit the Circular Corral in Oak Flat--it's 50 feet north of the West Pinto Trail and is somewhat visible from the trail. There are camping spots in Oak Flat and some with more shade along the first part of the Spencer Spring Trail.
You can't count on water at Oak Flat! Several springs in the area are noted on maps but all the maps have a different set of springs--that usually indicates the springs aren't reliable sources of water. I've seen maps with a spring at: Oak Flat, Jerky Spring north on the Cuff Button Trail, Concrete Spring south on the Spencer Spring Trail, and West Spring about halfway between Oak Flat and the Miles Trailhead. The only one that I've ever seen water at is possibly West Spring. I've seen stagnant pools of water in that area but it's not clear if they were collected rainwater or partly fed by a spring. In any case it's not very good water and is too close to Miles Trailhead to be of much use--assuming you carry extra water in your vehicle.
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