Ms Holden: When I was a kid (seven to ten), I lived in Phoenix (actually, Glendale). I hated it. We were poor and it was scorching.

Ah, but I was fascinated by Superstition Mountain. We went there often on excursions and picnics. My father, uncle and grandfather prospected there for gold (unsuccessfully, of course). I read everything I could find about its history and the Lost Dutchman Mine. I couldn’t have articulated it then, but the way it loomed out of the desert filled me with wonder and awe. It felt… powerful. Unfortunately, I was too young to hike up into it.

We left Phoenix, poverty, and the blast furnace heat behind and moved back east.

Decades later, on a corporate retreat in Scottsdale, I drove out to the trailhead near Goldfield. Again, I felt power and mystery.

I’m too old now to return and hike there, but it is one of the few power places (Eleusis, Lascaux) that I have ever experienced first hand and I can still feel its impact.

I understand the desert is having a huge wildflower bloom this year. I’d love to see that mountain rising out of those flowers.

Thanks for this article.