Sandia Peak, NM
The day after seeing Separatist Faction play live, I chose to head to Sandia Peak, home of the world’s longest tramway, for a day of hiking and photography. Built in 1966, the Sandia Peak Tramway is the longest continuous jigback tram in the world, which means that as one tram car is ascending, the other is descending. After a wondrous ride that provided breath-taking aerial views of Cibola National Forest, I disembarked the tram at Sandia Crest which sits at an elevation of 10,378 feet. From there you can spend the day skiing down the eastern slope of the mountain, having lunch and drinks at High Finance or hiking through Sandia Mountain Wilderness as I chose to do.
I actually stumbled upon the hiking thing. I honestly knew nothing of the place aside from the fact that I’d be riding the world’s longest tramway to the top. I was pretty pleased to see that there were multiple trails at the top and, choosing to take advantage of it despite my less than ideal outerwear, I set out for Kiwanis Cabin and then the peak. The trails were pretty icy which made the going a little slow initially, but they became less so as I got further along. The views were pretty spectacular varying from wide-open meadows that provided views of the valley below to heavily wooded areas that reminded me of the Brothers Grimm story Hänsel und Gretel.
Ultimately I spent five hours hiking around up there only turning back when I thought I might get caught out on the trail after sunset. I didn’t have gloves with me and the bottom of my jeans had already frozen solid. My feet were a little chilled and soles of my shoes no longer flexed as I walked, but the views and the pictures my amateur hands managed to capture made the cold more than worth it. Below are my favorites chosen from the over 500 I snapped. The one with “breathe” written in the snow is probably my favorite. I ran across that while out of breath trying to make the peak. At about 10,500 feet, it seemed pretty fitting for how I felt.
I’m still a fan of the two-shot panoramas as you can tell. Which ones do you guys like and why?
