Black Peak is the highpoint of the Pinos Altos Mountains, a small range that lies north of Silver City in southwestern New Mexico. Silver City itself lies at 5,900 feet elevation, in the transition between mountains and desert; the Pinos Altos can be seen from town as a ridge of peaks, sort of uniform in appearance, about 10 air miles from US-180 (the main east-west road through town). Although not a huge range, it has its merits - a thick forest and plenty of hiking trails, and not a lot of visitors. We were in the area back in 2004 (re-doing McKnight Mountain), and during that trip, while on a day tour up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, we made a side-drive up to Signal Peak to the lookout tower. Signal Peak is the peak immediately west of Black Peak. There was a 'race' going on at the time - people on horses following a route through the hills. At the top of Signal was a race checkpoint person, as well as the guy in the lookout. We stayed up there about an hour back then, chatting with everyone. However, at that time we did not bother to explore over to Black Peak.

This trip was planned for a Thanksgiving Holiday getaway. North of Silver City is the old town of Pinos Altos. Today it's a community of about 100 people, with some historic buildings, but a hundred years ago it was a bustling city and the county seat of Grant County. It has genealogical interest to Beth: her paternal line goes back five generations in Pinos Altos - among the first caucasian settlers there ever. They were railroad men and miners, while her grandfather was likely the first Pinos Altosian to make it to West Point. So while a hike in the range was on the agenda, so was some genealogy. That, and some side fun including a parade and some hot springs nearby. The irony is, as we left Phoenix to Silver City, we arrived late enough in the day and without any plans that our Thanksgiving dinner was just some cheese, crackers, salmon-in-a-pouch and some cups-o-soups. We hit a major jam near Tucson - a big wreck of some sort that was clearing when we finally scooted past.

We planned our hike into the Pinos Altos Range the next day, and got moving in mid-morning. We followed NM-15 about 15 miles north of Silver City, intending to take Gila National Forest Road 154 up toward Signal Peak. Even though we drove this road back in 2004, we (or, mainly, I) had trouble remembering where it left off the highway, so we (I mean I) drove up and down the highway thinking I'd missed it, but eventually I (with significant help and encouragement from Beth) found it just fine. Beth enjoyed watching me get lost. We drove up this fine road for 5.7 miles to a pullout on the left, near a trail access sign. Black Peak is less than a mile to the southeast from this pullout. Although the day was clear, it was quite cool, with an occasionally strong breeze. We were the only people there - we saw no other vehicles at the pullout or along the road. After suiting up, we started hiking about noonish I'd guess. (The road itself goes another mile west to Signal Peak)

We followed a segment of the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). From the parking area it rose gently south into the trees, then went gently left (southeast), all the while at a very lenient gradient. The trail was very well constructed and easy to follow. About two-thirds of the way up we encountered some patches of ice along the trail, but nothing to cause trouble. According to the 1999 topo map, the trail is shown as staying right on the ridge between Signal and Black, but our trail never achieved the ridge until much later than what would have seemed correct. When we finally achieved the ridge about 30 minutes later, we stopped for a break while I took a GPS reading. We were east of the peak! And it was standing right there, in front of us to the west... That worked out well. After our break we hiked up through the trees, pine needles, pine cones and some scrub to the top - about 120 vertical feet of off-trail hiking. And there we were, on top of old Black. Two buildings sit at the top, and some minor radio towers. The summit is cleared and there are great views south and east toward the Florida Range near Deming, plus Silver City below us. It had taken us a total of 45 minutes to get here, including our break, so we took another one at the top while I signed us in. We found the benchmark in a rock, while the actual high area seemed to be a few feet north near a witness marker (maybe 6 inches higher). We took some photos, but deliberatly framed the buildings out of the pictures. We noted a trail coming off of Signal heading west, but decided not to follow it, instead retracing our steps down the slopes to the CDT.

The hike out went very well, and the whole journey took us just 2 hours, covering maybe 1.2 miles and about 450 feet of gain. On our drive down we came upon two different vehicles, but that was all. Coming back into Pinos Altos we stopped near the old church and toured the cemetery grounds, some graves dating back to the 1800s and many of them unmarked or badly worn from age. We hoped to randomly find a 'Cousland' but had no such luck. Some old-timers digging a grave could not recall any Couslands buried there. It was worth a try. We had a relaxing day back at the hotel, highlighted by a forced move to a new room when the toilet above our room overflowed and started to cause some water damage in the walls of our bathroom.

The next day we planned to look at a short hike up Burro Peak but opted against it due to time. Instead we spent a day at the Faywood Hot Springs about 30 miles southeast of town near the eerie City of Rocks State Park. Then, that evening we took in the Christmas Parade in Silver City. This broke a 20-year parade drought for me, and we had lots of fun. Most floats were simple and mainly Christmas lights strung out over flat-bed trailers. Some weren't even that elaborate: our favorite was the 'Peacemeal' Vegetarian Deli float: a truck, with three guys sitting in back playing small drums and tablas, with their shop's name spelled out on milk jugs strung together. We had a blast. The next day (sunday) was our big drive home but we did check out Burro Peak. We figured we could drive to the radio towers on nearby Jack Peak, and hike a short bit to the real summit, but all the roads were deep sand and we wanted to part of that, so we decided just to get moving and to come back another day for some more hiking and fun. We enjoyed our time very much in Silver City.