"Got a later start than Friday.. go figure. 2nd attempt on this one, only this time from the south. Weather was great.. more like an early fall day. During my attempt to locate a USGS marker, I went over to the obviously higher area than where the lookout tower is, about a 1/10 mile away, where a mountain goat was keeping watch! The 3 markers (2 reference and the summit one) are all marked with the original name Harney. Since the name change refers to the lookout tower area, why the name of the actual summit, now called McGillicuddy Peak, was changed to this is beyond me." — SteveM_StickMan • Jul 21, 2024

"Hadn't been to Black Elk since its name was changed. Saw a goat around the summit and talked with three fellas that had ridden up on horseback. All and all a pretty good day for a hike." — StoneMan • Jul 21, 2024

"My first 7ker and State High Point summit ever as me and my friends climbed up Black Elk Peak. From the summit and lookout tower we could only see 3 miles out because of the canadian wildfire smoke. Roundtrip was 7 miles, 4 hours 45 minutes. The Black Elk Peak Trail aka Trail 9 is mostly easy but moderate at the end. Be careful walking over loose rocks, slippery rocks, or logs other than that it's a great hike overall." — timothywittrock1 • May 18, 2023

"Very hungover hike with Danny from Sylvan Lake. We opted for the loop. Lots of people out hiking Black Elk. Trails were easy to navigate. It was a very hot an humid day. We were happy to get back to the car when we were done. " — LGH-Tom • Aug 3, 2022

"It was 42 degrees when I started. I expected rain, so I packed my rain gear- just in case. I made it up to the summit in just under two hours taking trail #9. The tread was good with few rocks as I'm used to. The work that went into making the tower on the summit is really incredible. Anyway, I had the summit for about 10 minutes before a group of kids appeared. One of them immediately put his empty water bottle on the wall and watched it blow away. I decided to loop around on trails #3 and #4 instead of going back down #9. Soon it started to rain. Then the rain turned to snow. Fortunately I was prepared so it wasn't that bad, although it was pretty windy. " — Hillary • May 22, 2017