Black Mountain Road

Black Mountain Road takes you west from Gardner Road and weaves you through the piñon pines of the San Isabel National Forest. The trail is fairly easy and unassuming during drier weather, but based on the deep dried-up ruts, this trail could get pretty muddy after heavy rain. Although the majority of the trail is well maintained, do not let your guard down, there are about a dozen blind curves to navigate with no way to tell if there is oncoming traffic until they are right in front of you. When you exit the gate from the national forest land, the trail becomes more rugged. As you climb, you navigate large beach ball size boulders embedded in the ground. A stock high clearance 4x4 will not have any issues. Something shorter, like a Subaru, may struggle or scrape.

Once you get to the top of the ridge line of Black Mountain, the views are incredible in almost every direction. Camping is limited on the trail, with only one campsite large enough for one to two vehicles if parked in tandem.