Driving east from Taos after summiting Wheeler Peak, I remember a point when the downhill portion of the trip, with its sonata of braking and turning, turning and braking, gave way to the long flat of east New Mexico and the Oklahoma panhandle. I stayed overnight at the Black Mesa B&B, a ranch on the outskirts of the mesa itself. Grasshoppers were everywhere; the breakfast was excellent.

After a short drive from the B&B you reach the trailhead, marked by a stile, a natural history display, and a superb wrought-iron fence. In mile-marked intervals you begin the walk up the mesa, with green arrows pointing the way and benches at the mileposts. The black lava that gives the mesa its name is omnipresent, sometimes in large balls. After about 45 minutes you reach a gulley and begin the short upward portion of the hike. You gain the lip of the escarpment fairly quickly, which is when the full brunt of sun and wind hits you. Mindful of rattlesnakes and prickly pears underfoot, you follow the seam in the grasses until the big pink granite marker comes into view.

After signing the summit register and taking the obligatory documentary shots and summit selfies, I picked my way through thorny brush and lava blobs to the edge of the mesa and looked out across the bottomland. You can see the layers of ash deposited by the Capulin volcano 60,000 years ago. On the rim was an arrangement of cactus skeletons and silk flowers perched, perhaps romantically, on the perfect spot whence to leap into the void.

I met not a soul on the trail until near the end of the flats almost back at the gate: a university student from Texas on a weekend lark. He had no hat and was headed up the trail into the teeth of the heat.