Black Range Photographs

Other References

If you are interested in hiking the trails of the Black Range the following websites will have information you will find of interest:

Gila Trails Info
Gila Chapter - Back Country Horsemen
Southern New Mexico Explorer

Walks In The Black Range
Edition One

In addition, the first edition of Walks In The Black Range is available for download in three compression versions. All have the same content, resolution of some images is the only difference.

As with all Black Range Website projects, there is no cost for this material and it is offered to you for any non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License.

In General

Walks in the Black Range are varied in length, profile, and nature. Afternoon or early morning walks, day hikes, and overnight backpacking are all possible. In the foothills, wash walking is basically level - as is the profile of the Black Range Crest Trail. There are trails with elevation gain, however, like those from the Kingston area to the Black Range crest. The trails, themselves, range from “formal” United States Forest Service trails, maintained to various degrees, to cross country jaunts often on game trails. In between these extremes there is wash and stream hiking and walks along old mining roads. Walks wander through desert scrub to Douglas Fir forest, with various biomes in between. There is a bit of something for every hiking taste. The image to the left is from Lower Wicks Canyon near where the wash joins Percha Creek. Trails, washes, and cross-county ventures can be combined into all sorts of outings - mix the options up into any length walk which you would like.

James O. Pattie

Pattie trapped beaver along the Mimbres and Gila in the late 1820’s. His description of “walks” at that time may be of interest… (with a “grain of salt”? - hard to tell). Download at this link, the narrative we are interested in starts on page 52 with his initial crossing of the Black Range.