Hike Ute Mountains Loop Black Mountains BLM, AZ

Feb 15, 2021 — After hiking Boundary Cone a couple of years ago, I became interested in the other little peaks in the area. More research led me to understand that this subset of peaks is known as the Ute Mountains. This loop hits three of the smaller peaks adjacent to Boundary Cone. While none are quite as imposing, they're still fun.

Whiley and I parked shortly after leaving Oatman Highway and started up a Class 2 slope to the west of Peak 3360. It soon became clear we'd have to slog up a scree slope, but it ended up not being bad, aided by an animal trail. We continued to wrap around toward Peak 3360's north side, some light side-hilling and steep slope hiking bringing us to a notchy break in the cliffs above. Past the notch was some easy Class 2+ route-finding to make it up some maze-like cliff bands to the summit.

A Class 2 slope led down along Peak 3360's east side toward a small butte obstacle. We had the option to keep right and descend significantly or keep left and hopefully find a way around it. Choosing the latter led to a loose slope and ultimately down to the saddle of Peak 3360 and Peak 3072. All except Peak 3072's southwestern side were looking awfully steep, but a brightly-colored slab along the northeast ridge piqued our interest. Unsure if it would work out, we started up really interesting Class 2+ terraces and made it to the slab. Up-close, this section was unlikely anything I'd seen in the desert. I don't know enough about rock formations to say what was going on, but pictures hopefully do it justice below. This lightly exposed Class 2 ridge brought us to Peak 3072's cholla-riddled summit. This isolated cholla garden was really cool, though we stepped on more than one of these pokey landmines as we made our way across the ridgeline. The descent off Peak 3072 was uneventful.

We began working our way up to Peak 3065, a minor peak that seemed interesting enough to add on. The northeastern ridge took a tiny bit of thought, but can be kept at Class 2 with some fun route-finding around the small maze-like cliff bands. We decided to descend off Peak 3065's loose northwest slope Class 2+, but it might have made more sense to return to its saddle with Peak 3072 and descend from there. The route we chose wasn't particularly fun, but we found ourselves on an old mining road heading back to the car.