Lincoln County High Point Trip Report
Date: April 21, 2000
Author: John Mitchler
We reached Alto, NM and headed west on NM532. After one mile, we took a rough dirt road right
(north) for six miles to Monjeau Campground and slept out under the stars. This campground is on
Monjeou Mountain and has a Harney-esqe stone lookout tower, which we toured.
Friday morning we drove the remaining 11 miles of the narrow, winding state highway 532 that ends at
Ski Apache ski resort (labeled Sierra Blanca Ski Area on topo). We chatted with the on-site manager who
suggested a good route to reach Lookout Mountain, but he warned us that they'd close the gate to the
parking lot at 4:30pm. He asked if we planned to have a fire; this area is tinder-dry due to drought.
Apparently the ski resort has no problem with hikers and the Lincoln National Forest rangers confirmed
this. We started up the mountain to the left (north) of the ski lodge by hiking Snow Park (green run) and
crossed over to the Lincoln chair lift path to reach the summit of Lookout. There's a new lift to the top of
Lookout and a warming hut, both of which service the new Apache Bowl ski area on the southeast side of
the peak.. Lookout has a circular low stone structure with guide signs. We descended via Apache Bowl
and Deep Freeze ski run (which simply have access roads).