Two Trips to Black Mesa

Hiking in former No Mans Land

We summited Black Mesa twice. November 26, 1997 & April 9, 2005. It's a magical place with awesome terrain. It reminds me alot of Grant Wood's paintings only the terrain is not Iowa.

November 26, 1997

We stayed in Clayton, NM and took NM406 north up to Kenton. It was the day before Thanksgiving and we needed our winter jackets on eventhough it wasn't wintry weather. We met someone at the top of the mesa - turned out he too was seeking to stand atop the state highpoints and we been exchanging postcards since.

Tri-state markers

The two tri-state corners that border Oklahoma & New Mexico we visited in 1997 after our Black Mesa hike. On the way to Boise City, some horses that were roaming free were in the road and we slowed down so we wouldn't hit them. They approached the truck so we rolled down the window to get a better look. They stuck their heads right in to check us out. Exciting but scary. We were heading to the CO-KS-OK corner after we had lunch in Boise City but by that time it was almost three o'clock and we didn't want to travel back to Clayton in the dark. So we made a special trip to the CO-KS-OK corner on our last trip. All the side roads leading to that corner were dirt and fortunately they were in good shape when we ventured there.

April 9, 2005

This trip we stayed at the Kenton Kabins next door to the Mercantile. Highly recommended. We brought along our dogs because we figured the rattlesnake danger was minimal in early April and we knew they could handle this hike. We got up early and were on the trail before 7am. Just like the previous hike, we could hear the cows mooing at the nearby ranch and we saw the sun come up. The morning started out very cold. We had our hat & gloves on but by the time we reached the rim of the mesa top we really didn't need the extra layers. The sun hit the mesa just right and made for great scenery. I didn't have a digital camera at the time and my film just didn't capture that beauty. The second hike seemed to take shorter time as we were back to the trailhead by 11 o'clock. That included the time we backtracked when I realized I dropped my camera. Luckily it was only about a quarter of a mile where it was along the trail. It was a fun weekend getaway hike. The dogs were tired out on this one and somehow we knew after this one this was going to be their last long hike. They both slept all the way to Woodward, OK where we stayed for the night.

Roadside Stops

The roadside stop in Oklahoma is on US 287 between the Colorado line and Boise City. Rotary adopted it and maintains it. No facilities but couldn't help but stop and take a picture of the Oklahoma sign. The New Mexico rest stop is between Clayton and the Oklahoma line near the very tip of the Texas panhandle. It was like a little ranch setting and well maintained. However, when we passed it by in 2000, it was fenced off and appeared abandoned with the grass overgrown.

Images

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