ALBUQUERQUE DAY 5: WEDNESDAY

 

Heading towards the Sandia Mountains

The mountains, colors of the earth and desert lands are so different in NM vs ours here in the Northeast.  First of all, our nephew explained that they (the mountains and desert trails) are already at a higher elevation due to higher  sea levels. I'm not good with earth science so don't understand how it all works. I just know the air was different there and the trails much easier than any in the Adirondacks. 

After breakfast, Dave and I made a picnic lunch and gathered our hiking things and headed to the Sandia Mountains on the north side of the city. (I think I have that correct). We were going to do something very "touristy and overpriced but fun":  take the tram up to Sandia Peak.  The only thing I didn't  care for is that they really pack the tram full of people.  About 45 were in the tram and most of them were over the age of 65 on a senior citizens bus tour. It was extremely difficult to get good shots out the tram windows.  Here are a few I managed to get: 

visiting another national forest area

here comes the tram down

highest point in the Sandia's also known as 
The Crest

We found out, once we were at the top, that we could have hiked an easy trail up!  The base of the mountain is already at just over 8000 feet high so the hike would only be a 2000' hike.....which is nothing compared to the mountains here in NY.  The highest I've climbed in NY is 4,626 (Giant Mt) the 12th tallest mountain in the state. We also found out we could hike a nature trail on top of Sandia which included fir trees and an actual running water brook!!  We were in heaven!  Of course we didn't know there was a trail to hike up there so we were in street shoes although we did have hiking clothes on.  Here are some photos from the top of Sandia Peak :

a view of Albuquerque

Dave begins to hike the very easy nature trail

It was COLD up there but the sun was nice!

finally! a forest trail with fir trees!
the most green we saw all week!

loved these firs

a view of Santa Fe, NM's capital city

yes I walked on slushy snow/hail!!
Adam said that the week before the mountains
had snow while down in the  city they had rain

I had Hot Air Balloon ride on my bucket list to do when in Albuquerque, but there were high wind alerts each day we were there so we didn't get to do that. Plus, we didn't know we needed to make reservations a week in advance. Because my sister in law got there 3 days before we did, she did try to reserve, but they said the balloons wouldn't be lifting off due to high winds. We checked each morning on their website and they never did lift the ban. We finally decided we will have to have a hot air balloon ride here in the Capital Region in September when the ADK Balloon festival takes place.  My sister in law wants to do this even more than I do so we are hoping to make it work this year! 

We spent about an hour on the summit, and then around 12:15 took the first available tram down. The ride down was much more pleasant as there were only about 20 people in the tram. This activity is a "Been there done that" kind of thing. If I were to ever go back to ALBQ (which we probably won't), I definitely wouldn't waste the money again on that. 

We made our way over to a trail we thought sounded interesting and more challenging that any we had done. This is where we ate our picnic lunch. We took a chance and invited Adam, our nephew, to see if he wanted to hike with us and take a break from his work (studying for the law boards which he'll have to take come July). He said YES and he lives super close to the trail we chose. Here's a sign of the trail entrance. 

the map was extremely confusing and
NOTHING in the desert is blazed/marked
But...we did see the  canyon loop trail so started out on that

Here is a photo of what the area where we would be hiking through looked like:

which way do we go?????

see the sandy trail?? 
absolutely NO blazes
or cairns 
 we basically were guessing the entire way

Some of the trail was obvious.  We did come across 3 local girls....they seemed like college aged...and they said we were definitely on the canyon loop trail.  But they neglected to tell us something. 

Narrow trail but at least now we had 
an actual trail to follow!!
until we didn't. 
(Dave was admiring one of the cacti)

We got to one section and it just dead ended in volcanic rock. So....we had to turn around and make our way back to the obvious part of the trail and go a different way.  We were starting to feel the 85 degrees and we were starting to want a lot of water. We were actually panting due to the thinner air. Adam was shocked that his 65 year old aunt Faith who has chronic upper back pain was even attempting this. I said, this is nothing!  yes the air is harder to breathe but I go up mountains. this is a small hill!! "  I told him if I made it back to the car, he could tell all his 30 something friends that his old aunt made it! HA!

When my fitbit said we had gone 2 miles we didn't see any signs of the trail looping back. We were in the cliffs, no actual trail and had no idea how much farther. We had lost sight of the parking area, and the actual wider part of the trail. It was quite desolate. We were drinking water, when a man came along and asked which trail we were doing. We said we thought we were on the Embudito canyon trail. He said yes but that the other side of the loop was closed to hiking!!  (um....hey land conservancy....how about you put that on a sign near the entrance??!!) This is operated by the Open Space and is not a national wilderness area so definitely no park rangers were going to come along! The man said we could keep hiking and that the trail would eventually join another one and then it would only be about 8 miles to the car. Um. No. We didn't have enough water with us for an extra 4 miles so we turned around at this view point and did the 2 miles back.  All in all, we hiked 4.3 miles that afternoon.  We were beat!  The sun was unbearable to us.....just too hot. But interestingly and unlike the Northeast, it wasn't humid. thank God, it wasn't!!

Here is the high point we made it to, and the point where we turned back hoping we would make it back along this almost non-existant trail. 

Our turn around point...look at that view!
that's looking towards south Albuquerque and Old Town

Once we were back at the cars, we made plans with Adam to meet him at Church St Cafe (we had been longing to go back) and said we wanted to treat him for dinner. He was planning on showering and doing some more work; we were planninng on showering and resting with our books or just a nap in the cool casita. 

I didn't take pics of our dinner at Church St Cafe but I ordered the Vegetarian Bean burger with a side of potato salad and a crisp gin and tonic. Adam ordered a gin and tonic as well and Dave ordered a beer. Dave had some kind of huge  beef burrito and I think Adam had one of the vegetarian burritos. Dldave and I had walked to the Old Town restaurant, and Adam decided to drive us home so he could take back to his apartment, the food we knew we would not eat nor be able to take back on the plane. We gave Adam big hugs, told him to let us know how he does on the boards, and he drove back to his place while we got ready for bed. We wanted to be out the door early so we could go out to breakfast and then return the rental car and get to the airport for a coffee and relax before our 1 pm flight to Chicago. 

Thursday morning, we checked out of the casita by 7:30 and ended up near the airport for a delicious breakfast. I had the avocado on multigrain toast and scrambled eggs. It was delicious!  If you ever are in Albuquerque and need a good breakfast place, we highly recommend Sunnyside Up! They were top notch.

Actually, every place we ate in Old Town and just outside Old Town was absolutely amazing. The food is so good in Albuquerque!!

Have you been to Albuquerque??  If yes, what did you do there? Did you rent a house or stay in a hotel??