Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Sandia Peak, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Whew… still playing ketchup blog folks… this is Wednesday, and it was a beautiful sunny 81 deg. F. type of day.  We had another busy day here, but I want to tell you what we ended up doing yesterday! 

We started off by heading out to Petroglyph National Monument.  More specific, the Boca Negra Canyon.  This Monument features designs and symbols carved into rocks by American Indians and Spanish Settlers 400 to 700 years ago, that you can still see.

There are more than 20,000 petroglyphs along the volcanic escarpment.  They did not have the internet or blogs to record history, so they carved into the rocks!  Some you can see and understand what they are… others… well, they are left to interpretation.

We took this trail up a volcanic mountain… about 200 feet up or so…

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The 2 on the left below look like birds to me… not sure what is in the centre…

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I think I know what this one is below… all they had to do, was sort of scratch off the varnish off the rocks to make the design…

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This one does look a little like Patra…

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Below is obvious… man with 3 antlers!

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Mumbo jumbo…

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I think in the pic below, Judy looks like a teacher, and is showing about 30 small kids what is on the rock!

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By the pics below, it is obvious they had spaceships back then…

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One of the prime tourist attractions in Albuquerque is the Sandia Peak Tram Ride.   It goes up about 5,000 feet, and is the longest tram ride in the World!  I would love to show you pics we took of it, however it is currently closed for two weeks for regular safety inspection.  However, you can drive you vehicle right to the very top of Sandia Mountain on a beautiful road, just a bit steep!   We took that route…  Now Albuquerque is already 5, 280 feet up (yup, 1 mile) and the peak of the mountain is over 10,600, so it is a bit of a ride up! Oh, and did I mention you would see snow!

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Below is the restaurant and gift shop up at the very top… it took us an hour to get up, and about 1 1/2 tanks of gas!

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Below, I was standing at the restaurant looking straight out, and this is what I saw!  Yes, I had 5 bars on my cell phone!  Judy and I brought up Subway sandwiches with us to enjoy at the top, and we did not have to heat them up, I just held them in the air for 45 seconds and they was nice and toasty warm!

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You can always trust your Magellan GPS… look in the lower right to see the altitude…

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Below is the absolute commanding view of Albuquerque, over 5,000 feet in the air… this City is really spread out and is fantastic!

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I love looking DOWN onto Mountain Peaks!

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We took a Jeep road home, and it was a little slow, as we also had the Burgman on the back of the Jeep, however we made it fine!  Along this 5 miles of dirt road, we found a hike that took you up to a cave, Sandia Cave,  that yielded a bunch of artefacts… (tools, and implements) excavated in the 1940’s along with some sloths, horses, camel, bison, and mammoth and a mastodon!  The site represents one of the earliest occupations of the Americas!  Wow…  Three distinct pre-historic groups were found here!  It was a very steep climb up, and as we are already 1 mile up, we did not make the climb… sometimes you have to say no.  It was late in the afternoon, and we were tired!

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and this was not all we did yesterday, but you have to wait!

Till tomorrow…

10 comments:

  1. Whenever we visit places like Petroglyph National Monument, we always try to wonder what the people were doing there. How did they survive in those conditions. Sometimes I can hardly survive when the temps get in the 40s.
    On our hikes, we talk about what the pioneers must have thought when they came to one of the mountain peaks. Just amazing what people can do when they have to.

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  2. Too bad you couldn't ride the tram but you got some great pictures anyway. Wonderful views.

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  3. The view from the peak is amazing and the petroglyphs quite interesting. We took the tram about three years ago and it too is something else. A great adventure for the day.

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  4. NM has so many beautiful places. We lived in Sandia Park (you drove through there on the way up the mountain) for over 20 years (until we started fulltiming in 2006), and the Sandias were in our back yard. We took many drives up to the Crest on the motorcycle, and other times just did the same loop you did in the Jeep.

    Glad you're enjoying "our" piece of NM. Although my license plates say South Dakota, I still consider NM home.

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  5. ...and yet another place to add to the RV bucket list.

    FYI: John, the NEXUS pass costs $50 US per applicant and the card is good for five years.

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  6. You may have spared yourself the fright of a lifetime by not taking that Tram ride to the top of Sandia Peak. I took it several years ago and it is one scary ride - rockin' and rollin' all the way to the top.

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  7. Our oldest son got married on that tram on the way up. Then had the reception at the restaurant up there. What a great experience that was.

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  8. This is definitely on the To Do list for next winter! What a great blog. thanks. We are being blown through Oklahoma at the moment.

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  9. We went to Sandia Peak when we were in Albuquerque too! It's so fun seeing the same things from someone else's perspective!

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