Hike Madre Mountain and Davenport Lookout Cibola National Forest, NM

Oct 17, 2024 — I met up with Kevin to hike Madre Mountain, a summit in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico with just under 2,000 feet of prominence. Unfortunately, there are dirt roads leading most of the way to the summit, but we managed to extend the hike a bit by taking a detour to Davenport Lookout as well as to unnamed lump Peak 9275 to the south. If you have a good vehicle, you could drive up to Davenport Lookout and reduce the approach to Madre Mountain to just a couple of miles. However, Kevin, the addicted peakbagger and sweetheart that he is, drove nearly four hours to do this hike with me. So, we opted to hike the roads and form a loop instead, giving us more time to explore the area on foot. We parked at the National Forest border, just before a pocket of private land where parking is prohibited.

We started by hiking up the road to Davenport Lookout, an uneventful set of switchbacks with some nice views of the surrounding hills. The summit has a lookout tower, but people were working on it, so we didn’t climb it. The dirt road continues toward Madre Mountain, descending first to just below the saddle. Here, we encountered a junction with another approach road. I had read that this road was in rough shape, but it seemed perfectly fine near the junction, but it might be another viable option for reaching the base of Madre Peak via vehicle if that's your preference. We decided to take this road later to reach unnamed Peak 9275. First, though, we headed north on a much rougher dirt road up to the southwest ridge of Madre Mountain.

From there, an even rougher road climbs steeply north before transitioning into a degraded trail leading up the grassy slope. A cairn marked the existence of this trail, which might have been official at some point but is now little more than a social trail. It continues along the ridgeline, wrapping around a few lumps along the way. We headed up the steep northern slope of Madre Mountain and reached the bald summit, where the views of the surrounding area were excellent.

After backtracking to the road junction, we decided to form a partial loop rather than retracing our steps entirely. We headed south, leaving the road when a gully became visible on our right. There was a faint hint of an old road here, but it didn’t last long. The gully soon became brushy, so we ascended the steep northern slope of Peak 9275 instead. It might have been easier to continue to the saddle between Peak 9275 and Davenport Lookout, but we were fine with taking the steeper option. There wasn’t much bushwhacking, though it wasn’t a particularly interesting peak. At the top, Kevin called me over to admire what he described as "an excellent view of some bushes" that he was sure I had missed.

From Peak 9275, we descended north to the saddle through more forest, then followed a gully with a faint social trail on its north side. Eventually, the gully brought us back to the start of the Davenport Lookout Road.