Black Mountain
El Paso Mountains Wilderness (BLM) With the new year, I seem to be out playing the Hundred Peaks Game again. Today has two targets that will be two separate hikes in the expanses of generally ignored Bureau of Land Management lands up peaks simply named for the color of the rocks that bring them to their height. The first is not entirely ignored as it sits within a Congressionally designated wilderness area. The route to the start is a decidedly rough road where the high clearance 4x4 is very desirable. After a slight maze of numbered roads, we park at the top of a gentle and rocky slope ready to get started up the mountain. Out on a gentle slope of desert with snowy mountains in the background and nature cheering us on with a rainbow. Or maybe that is just a good indication we will get some rain on us eventually. We head up the gentle slope past a mysterious fenced structure. It looks a bit like there is a gap between ourselves and the mountain to the north, then ...