Black Mountain via Nighthawk Trail and Miner's Ridge Trail Loop is a 6.4 mile heavily trafficked loop trail located near San Diego, California that features beautiful wild flowers and is rated as moderate. The trail offers a number of activity options and is accessible year-round. Dogs are also able to use this trail but must be kept on leash.
Free parking and a restroom at Hilltop Park
Make sure you hike early morning or late evenings. No shade but a great view of San Diego
Not crowded on a Thursday. Weird road walk at the end, otherwise very pleasant. Saw Catalina and San Clemente Islands from the top.
Loved it! Especially after all the rain yesterday. Tad muddy, but made for an adventurous hike.
Excellent hike. Easy, but steep and rocky at points. Make sure to bring water, not much shade
Best combo of trails for hiking in Blk Mountain area for good cardio and views from both sides of the mountain. Beautiful scenery. More shade on the north side (Miners Ridge) Definitely my favorite. The beauty of this hike is that it’s close to the suburbs, ie. no need to travel far if you live in NC SD, get a bite or eat or snack afterwards.
This trail starts with a quick climb but it’s only about a quarter mile. The summit isn’t that hard. After the summit we did the Miners Loop trail. It’s pretty. There is a bench at the marked viewpoint but it’s a bit overgrown. We took the side trip to Glider Point. I’d recommend that as the views are amazing. We wanted to second summit but the trail is closed and another hiker said just last week the police helicopter was circling and using a loudspeaker to tell hikers to get off the trails. The loop isn’t well marked so we missed the way out and ended up doing half the loop again. There are lots of bikers but they were mostly polite and had bells so you could hear them coming. We took the Miners Trail back down to Hilltop. It was a fire road but pretty easy down if you have knee issues. Overall a good cardio hike, but busy with bikers and poor signage.
Quite muddy and slippery after raining all day the day before. It was a great workout though and I think I added a mile or so because of some detours and missing the trail. .
This is a pretty tough trail, I'm new to MBing and got in over my head, but I had a blast. I cut the trip short because I left my water. I wouldn't recommend going without water.
Started this trail at 6am on a Monday and did not realize just how high we hiked due to the thick morning clouds. When we reached the peak we were above the clouds which was spectacular. It was pretty rocky on the way back down and we did see alot of others on the trail but overall it was worth it!
Too many people (Sunday) and too many bikes. Oh well. Great hike anyway!!
Original plan was to take Nighthawk Trail to Miner's Ridge Loop Trail to the Secondary Summit then to the main summit and back to the starting point. BUT, for unknown reasons the short segment between summits is marked as "trail closed" -- very unfortunate since it is a nice wide, straight link between summits. Instead, hikers are expected to backtrack several miles and just walk up the access road.