[philmont] Miner's Park to Black Mountain Camp

Excellent trail. I last hiked it 9-12-01 (yes, the day after). I routinely wear gaiters when hiking to keep wet brush and dewy high grass from wetting my socks or to avoid a stray pebble from making its way in.

I recall more balancing on log crossings than splashing. There was one particular splash site, however, where an overly energetic beaver had flooded the trail with his (or her) woodland engineering activities. There are in excess of 50 crossings, but it is remarkable only for the incessant back-forth, back-forth rather than really getting wet, in my experience.

As noted by other posters, there are trout in this stream and it probably gets much, much less fishing pressure than the Rayado or the Agua Fria. The beaver ponds make for great habitat, and most potential scout fishermen are just marching past. If you've got an angler or two in the crew, make sure to schedule time to stop. The others may enjoy the activity vicariously.

The trail also passes under the formation known as the Grizzly Tooth, which is quite a photo op. Also make sure to take some shots of it from the Miner's Park to North Fork Urraca camp trail, where it is prominently visible. The topo says it is 2 ft higher than the Tooth itself. No trails that I know of lead to it, but Rock Rohrbacher says it can be reached by bushwacking downhill from the trail from Black Mountain summit to Shaeffer's pass. You would not be able to reach it from the creek trail, but it does tower above it.

All for now,

Bill Sheehan, ASM
Troop 55, Pitman, NJ
Philmont '70,'72, Autumn Adventure '01,'03,'05

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Received on Fri Jun 1 09:29:24 2007