Trip report
Jan 19, 2023 — Ranking among the most popular hikes in Phoenix, the Siphon Draw Trail leading up to The Flatiron is a classic Superstition Mountains jaunt. I'd hiked to The Flatiron years ago, but never to Ironview Peak above it. For this reason, and because I wanted to revisit this lovely (though crowded) hike, I decided to head over to Lost Dutchman State Park. The state park requires an entrance fee to park your car, but aside for the first quarter mile the hike is located completely in Tonto National Forest. You could park outside the park boundary if you can find a legal way and hike in from there, but I chose to just drop the few bucks and do the trail as intended.
After darting through the interpretive trail portion within Lost Dutchman, I ascended the extremely wide and gradual trail up into the Superstition Wilderness. Here the trail became more singletrack-like, though years of footsteps have created short detours and the official trail is no longer easily discernible. Taking a few short switchbacks, the trail keeps above the Siphon Draw drainage and traverses along the slope before descending into the mouth of the water-carved feature referred to as Siphon Draw. There was a trickle of water cascading down the center, a beautiful hangout spot that people seem to actually take care of, despite its popularity.
I hiked up the steep, sloped Siphon Draw watercourse to its head, a hundred feet or so above. The route can be a little tricky past here since there are social trails leading in multiple directions. Keeping too far left leads into the main drainage, and while this option would ultimately work fine, the official trail leads up a Class 2 slope to a notch between the pinnacles. The slope is eroded to death, so it shouldn't be hard too locate. Once at the notch, I got a great view of The Flatiron far above and the drainage scramble to come. The trail drops a few feet from this notch, leading down into the drainage. Once within the drainage, there's no getting off-route. It's a series of fun Class 2/2+ obstacles leading up the bouldery and often steep ascent. I imagine this was a dangerous route when it was first used, but I assume all loose rock hazards have long since been dislodged, leaving only fun upward progress on solid scrambling terrain. There's a path of least resistance, but you can always make it harder by pulling all sorts of moves on the many boulders.
After gaining about 1200 vertical feet, a final Class 3 move brought me out of the drainage and onto a nice trail that leads west, following the rim of The Flatiron and ultimately leading to the lookout point. The Flatiron is not a peak though it's a very cool feature. The majority of hikers turn around here, myself included on my first visit. This time my excitement was set on Flatiron Peak, a pinnacle-filled high point just to the east. The peak itself is popular enough to have a well-traveled social trail. I hiked back to the head of the drainage and started up on this social trail, which wrapped around an initial set of pinnacles and onto a slope at Flatiron Peak's base. This section is a little brushy, so the carved trail helped negate any unpleasantness. Suddenly the trail seemed to end at a bouldery headwall, but a Class 2/3 crawl led through a stack of these big guys. The trail continued ascending adjacent to the bouldery headwall and then entered another short boulder cave, an easy Class 3 move taking me out and up onto the final hundred feet of trail to the summit. In the distance I could see Superstition Peak at the end of the Superstition ridgeline and the rolling, colorful Superstition Mountains stretching away.