Black Canyon Trail

The Black Canyon trail is a short, easy lollipop trail through an aspen-fir forest. If you take this trail, you will see several types of wildflowers, and possibly lots of butterflies. This is a good trail for children or a family.
Trailhead and campsites 4 and 5

Hike data:

Controlling agency: Santa Fe National Forest; Española Ranger District; hike web site
Location in the state: North-central; Sangre de Cristo Mountains
Trailhead waypoint(s): BCTH
Elevation:
start: 7680ft; 2341m end: 7680ft; 2341m
min: 7680ft; 2341m max: 8061ft; 2457m
Elevation gain/loss: 291 ft; 89 m
Length: 1.18 mi; 1.90 km.
How long it took us (HH:MM): 00:45. 8/3/01: 1:45.
Cleanliness: 10/10
Trail usage: 4.06 people/hour. 8/3/01: We saw nobody else.
Trail Condition: Excellent.
Fee: $0.00.
When we hiked it: 2004-08-29. 2001-08-03
Trailhead facilities: Water, trash cans, toilets.
Special features of the hike: Wildflowers, wildlife.
When to hike: All year. In the winter, cross-country ski it. Note also that the gate may be locked in the winter, requiring that you hike/ski through the campground to get to the trailhead.
General comments: Beware of thunderstorms in July and August. New Mexico has the highest per capita lightning strike rate in the US. Please do not add to the statistics.

Maps:

Map showing the location of the trailhead

Getting to the trailhead:

From the Santa Fe plaza, head north on Washington Ave. Just past the pink Scottish Rite Temple, turn right on Artist road; the sign says that Hyde State Park and the Santa Fe Ski Basin are this way. Drive about seven miles and you will see the sign for the Black Canyon campground on your right.

Turn right and make an immediate left into the trailhead parking. If the trailhead packing is full (it only has about six spaces), park outside along the railing on the highway. If you park in the campground, you must pay a $10.00 vehicle fee.

The trailhead parking lot has a trail that leads from it. This is not the trail you want. It goes to Hyde Memorial State park (there are nice hikes there, such as the Hyde Park Circle Trail, but they are different hikes). Instead, hike through the campground to the back of the loop, between campsite 24 and a vault toilet. The trailhead has a sign. The hike from the campground entrance to here is an additional 100ft of elevation gain.

The hike:

Diana Northup on the Black Canyon Trail

You start gently heading uphill, walking past wild roses, cinquefoil, nodding wild onions, clematis, geraniums and other wildflowers (not all of which will be in bloom). The trail is easy to follow, and is usually wide enough to walk two abreast.

Here you can see Diana on the trail, not far from the trailhead.

Here is a purple geranium (Geranium caespitosum) which was near the trailhead.
Geranium richardsonii
Diana Northup at the Y in the trail
After about half a mile, you arrive at a place where the trail splits. You can go either way; you will arrive back at this location. We went to the right.

Along this part of the trail, there are lots of thimbleberries. Unfortunately, we only found one ripe one---The one on the left was ripe and was tasty.

There are also several currant bushes, but the berries were just beginning to form, so they were a long way from being ripe.

Thimbleberries
False Solomon's Seal with unripe berries

Along this part of the trail, we saw some False Solomon's seal with unripe berries (do not eat these, even if they are ripe---they are poisonous).

The trail heads fairly straight for about 2/3 of a mile, and then turns. This is the far point of the trail. You are now beginning to loop back. At this point, you begin to climb a bit more steeply (but still not a hard climb). Along this portion of the trail, we saw several butterflies. Also, we saw an interesting fungus(?) [See the comments below; a reader identified this as a erineum felt gall] on some maple leaves. It makes the leaves turn a bright red.
Red fungus on a maple leaf
A crab spider on a <em>Chimaphilia umbellata</em>

A little way after the sign, we saw a crab spider on a Chimaphilia umbellata. The spider looks like part of the plant, but look closely. You can see its legs sticking out to either side of the upper right side of the open flower.

Here is one of the many butterflies and day-active moths we saw.

As you walk along, you will come to an area where a trail has been closed by many logs being placed on it and a sign indicating you are to stay on the trail. Along the closed trail is the Santa Fe Watershed; if you go in there, you will be fined. This sign is also an indication that you are almost back at the Y. Once you get to the Y, turn right and return to the campground.

A day-flying moth

Plants we saw along the trail:

Reader comments about this hike:

On Wed Aug 10 12:58:13 2005 Suzy O from somewhere said:
Just FYI I thought I'd mention that the red, fuzzy growth on the maple leaves is not "fungus?", but a type of gall (growth caused by insect(s), called erineum felt gall. It's not uncommon on maples in North America. Here's a site describing these and other galls: http://www.forestpests.org/vermont/gallmitesandmidges.html

Suzy Orth
UW Extension, Milwaukee Co.

On Fri May 4 17:41:20 2007 Doug from Albuquerque, NM said:
Black Canyon is a nice little walk, but not much of a hike. Go on up to the ski area, park, and head up the Winsor Trail. High mountain streams and lakes, 12K' peaks, etc., all at your feet. Obviously, check it out first. But going to the Sangre de Cristos and then just hiking Black Canyon would be a bit like going to New Orleans and eating at Denny's. :)

On Fri Aug 29 09:37:19 2008 Anonymous from Albuquerque, NM said:
My husband and I hiked this trail last weekend. It was a pleasant hike to begin our day of sightseeing in Santa Fe. The trail was a little rocky, probably due to an earlier thunderstorm, and it seemed a bit narrow part of the way, as we had to stop to let others pass by. I think that maybe the campsites were renumbered because campsites 4 and 5 are at the very front near a small parking lot and bathroom before the actual campground entrance. I believe that the trail is closer to campsite 26. I don't have good route-finding skills so this confused me more than it probably would a normal person.

On Mon Jun 8 12:14:49 2009 Anonymous from Somewhere said:
The directions provided were great, until you get to the campsite. There is no trail between camp sites 4 and 5 and there is a free hiker parking lot just inside the campground entrance to the left (which is also where the trail starts).

Nice hike for families. Steep in areas and gives you the option of seeing a small waterfall or doing a longer hike up the mountain. The waterfall route is not a loop, and you end up turning around and walking out the way you came in.

On Mon Jun 8 16:47 2009 the webmaster added:
When they rebuilt the Black Canyon campground, the instructions I had here were no longer accurate. I just updated them to hopefully remove the confusion. In particular, the trail does not leave from the trailhead parking lot. You need to hike to the back of the campground to find the trailhead between a toilet and campsite 24.

The hike and waterfall described in the comment above is part of the network of trails in Hyde Memorial State Park. The longer hike described above is the Hyde Park Circle Trail, a different, but very nice hike.

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