Page 14 - Walks In The Black Range

5. East Railroad Canyon
As described here this walk was 4.5 miles each way (9 miles RT) with an elevation gain of 1700 feet.
During the winter, the Railroad Canyon Campground and direct access to the trailhead is closed so hikers have to park along the highway
(NM-152). On February
11, 2018 we found the
lower section of this trail
in very good condition.
The stream level was low and the many stream crossings were easy (hardly noticeable).
From the highway, the Gallinas Canyon Trail continues north and reaches the junction of the Railroad Canyon Trail at 1.4 miles from NM-152 (the signage indicates 1.5 miles from the trailhead to this junction). At this junction the Gallinas Canyon Trail turns northwest. From this junction the Railroad Canyon Trail continues north for another .8 of a mile (signage indicates 1 mile) to its junction with East Railroad Canyon Trail. The Railroad Canyon Trail continues north (left trail) to the Holden Prong Saddle. The trail to the right is the East Railroad Canyon Trail, it continues northeast to the Hillsboro Peak Cut-Off Trail, a distance of about 2.8 miles.
During the winter, there can often be a stream of ice (right photo) running down the east fork.
At one time this was a
maintained trail through
lovely country. We went up this trail for about a mile on January 28, 2018. The trail was a disaster, downed trees were everywhere, there was lots of smaller debris everywhere, and there was loose rock everywhere. Now, at the best of times the trail is nothing more than an
overgrown game trail - lots of locust saplings, masses of wild rose, and other vines, grass, and tangles of vegetation. On this occasion the trail did not exist.
We had hoped to walk to the Cut-Off Trail on that occasion but found that our progress was much slower than we had anticipated. As a result, we turned back well short of our goal. Coming back down we found the going much easier
because we had an idea of how to traverse the canyon floor. Although it is not that easy to find the general location of the old trail - you can’t get lost, the entire walk is in the canyon bottom.
On the map at the end of this entry, I set a way- point (yellow circle) near where I took the photograph to the left on January 28, 2018. At that time the stream was ice, with a bit of water flowing beneath.
On the 11th (two weeks later) we returned, starting earlier than before and feeling fairly sure that we would navigate the canyon to where we had stopped before in much shorter time.
On the 11th we made it to a point at 8,671 feet in elevation, about .3 miles short of the Cut-Off Trail (a steep .3 miles according to the map). By the time we stopped, we had gained 1,700 feet in elevation and were very tired, every step seemed to be a fight with locust and roses. The fire and floods had made the canyon a mass of loose rock and boulders, downed trees were everywhere. Bad footing was the norm for
more than half the time. The rest of the time it was just bad.
We turned back at this point (4.5 miles from the highway), pretty sure that we would make it out about an hour before nightfall. There had been a couple of falls on the way up so