Photos of a loop hike on the Coffee Flat, Whiskey Springs, and
Red Tanks trails in the Superstition Mountain Wilderness
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This loop hike used the Coffee Flat Trail, Whiskey Springs Trail, and Red Tanks Trail in the Superstition Wilderness. The main goal of this hike was to visit Red Tanks Canyon east of Coffee Flat Mountain. We used the 4WD-only Elephant Butte road to reach the Wilderness Boundary just south of Coffee Flat at Whitlow Tank. You can do this loop out of the Peralta Trailhead or Woodbury Trailhead but that adds 5.6 or 7.8 miles to the trip. Travel on Elephant Butte Road requires an Arizona State Land Recreation Permit which costs $50 per adult or $75 for a family (defined by law as: "2 adults and children under 14 years of age".)

Our full route was:
- Northwest on an unnamed trail from the end of Elephant Butte Road through Whitlow Canyon to the Coffee Flat Trail
- West on the Coffee Flat Trail to the Dutchman Trail
- North on the Dutchman's Trail to Miners Summit and the Whiskey Springs Trail
- East then north on the Whiskey Springs Trail to the Red Tanks Trail
- East on the Red Tanks Trail through Upper LaBarge Box Canyon to just past the juction with the Hoolie Bacon Trail where we camped
- Southeast on the Red Tanks Trail to the Coffee Flat Trail. Near the junction we stopped to look at Dripping Spring
- West on the Coffee Flat Trail through Randolph Canyon
- At the western end of Randolph Canyon, southwest through Coffee Flat Canyon headed back to Elephant Butte Road
- North on Elephant Butte Road a few hundred feet to it's end.

The hike was 16.3 miles with a hiking time of 12 hours over two days. The starting/ending elevation is 2378 feet with a high of 3631 feet.

Some maps show a different route through the Red Tanks Divide (a bulge to the east) and some even label the route we used as the "Red Tanks Cutoff". I didn't notice the "main" route although I was looking for it and the route we took was well traveled and more direct.
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