I did this trip while taking the Black Mesa Trail and Dutchman Trail Loop through the First Water Trailhead. Once I reached the Black Mesa and Dutchman Trail Junction on the southeast point, I turned to head towards Palomino Mountain. There is a very faint use trail that goes to the base of Palomino Mountain. This requires to follow a nearby river before heading up a canyon up to Palomino Mountain. The river had some water here and there but most of the river bed was completely dried out. I can imagine this to be a fully flowing river during snowy days and heavy rain days like during the monsoon. Once I reached the base I followed cairns about halfway up before the trail completely disappears and no more cairns were available. It was difficult to climb with the large quantities of shrubs and trees that had grown here.

Don't be a dumbass like me and take shorts on overgrown hikes. This particular climb murdered my legs and I was a bloody mess by the time I reached the saddle.

Once I reached the saddle, the three needles lay prominently around me. Now I had done plenty of research in the weeks following to this hike about where the true summit actually lies. And there seems to be a lot of debate on whether the true summit is on the North needle or the South needle. I went ahead and climbed the middle needle because to my untrained and noobish eyes, it looked the tallest to me. Of course that could very well be because it was the closest of the three (although not by much). Personally, I didn't really care for the exact details because of how miniscule the difference in feet between the three needles are.

Going up the middle needle was terrifying for me. It was so narrow that as I was trying to climb up, I could sit, and my left leg would dangle on the left side of the peak and my right leg would dangle on the right side of the peak. Looking down looked to be around 50-80 feet drop and I had to focus every movement in front of me so that I wouldnt look down. I was too afraid to walk along the ridge so I ended up letting my feet dangle on both sides and using my stomach and chest to crawl my way up. This was painful - again, especially in shorts.

Going back down I followed the path I took up. But my constant bush wacking made it so much easier to find the exact path I took back down. Once I reached the river bed, I was ecstatic to finally be free from smacking my legs with every single branch and boulder.

Once I reached the main trail once more, I finished the loop by taking Dutchman's Trail back to First Water Trailhead. Finally calling it a nice long day after 10.8 miles of hiking. Trail was tracked on my alltrails: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/afternoon-hike-at-black-mesa-trail-and-dutchman-trail-loop-4d5b995?u=i