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| Beautiful Mountain - San Juan COHP, NM | |
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| | Beautiful Mountain - San Juan COHP, NM | | | |
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Beautiful Mountain - San Juan COHP, NM
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| Hiking | 7.36 Miles |
2,662 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.36 Miles | 5 Hrs 45 Mns | | 1.49 mph |
| 2,662 ft AEG | 48 Mns Break | | | |
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| no linked trail guides |
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| no partners | | This was a hike to the summit of Beautiful Mountain (elevation of 9,386 feet and prominence of 1,529 feet), the high point of San Juan County. San Juan County is in the northwest corner of New Mexico; the county seat is Aztec and the largest city is Farmington.
Beautiful Mountain is part of the Chuska Mountains, which are partly in New Mexico and partly in Arizona. Beautiful Mountain is in the Navajo Nation, which shouldn't be surprising since over 60% of San Juan County is comprised of Navajo land.
I purchased a Navajo Nation Backcountry permit, so I had the legal stuff in order.
I approached the peak from the southeast. I drove in through the town of Sanostee and parked alongside IR 5013. I could have driven further, but the road had some rough sections that I was tired of navigating, so I parked and did some road walking. It would be possible to drive far enough to make this a 2 mile RT hike if you had the vehicle and determination to drive the road.
I hiked about 1.7 miles on the road, and then went off-trail to the summit. The off trail was a little bit brushy, but nothing really bad. There are some intimidating cliff bands below the summit, but fortunately there is a horizontal break in the bands that facilitates getting through the bands. The climb up to the base of the cliff bands and through the break was steep, but I'd call it class 1+/2-.
Views at the summit were nice, but I thought that the highlight of the hike was the route finding getting through the cliff bands. |
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Wildflowers Observation Isolated
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| Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
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