Wednesday March 7, 2018
In the morning, we planned on driving the Turquoise Trail, an interesting loop south of Sante Fe while the Finns spent the day trying to resolve the annoying squeak that developed as they started south. The squeak had been diagnosed as a fairly major repair that required parts not usually in stock - (but it's okay to drive until it breaks...).
 |
| View from our hike in the Sandia foothills |
Rather than spend most of the day driving, albeit to interesting places, we opted to take a hike in the Sandia foothills on the west side of Sandia Mountain. A loop trail took us past an interesting birding blind and linked several trails on the lower slopes of the mountain - at 6000' we didn't need the steep trail up the mountain to get a workout. We saw a variety of birds and were passed by a number of bikers enjoying a beautiful day.
 |
| I think these are Cassin's Vireos we spotted from the bird blind |
 |
| Juniper titmouse |
 |
| Sharp shinned hawk |
 |
| Mexican jay |
 |
Townsend's solitaire
|
 |
Leonard on the Sandia foothill hike
|
After a bit of arm twisting, I convinced Leonard taking the tram to the top of the mountain, a 15 minute ride, which I thought was a better choice than the long drive (Turquoise Trail) and then the steep and twisty road to the top from the east. It's the longest passenger tramway in the world, opened in 1966. With new gondolas, we had a great 360 view, along the 2.7 trip to 10,378' peak. It's referred to as a 'flight' and our flight attendant gave an interesting and detailed account of the terrain as we passed over it.
 |
Tram cars passing by the upper tower - it's supported by 2 towers the upper one constructed solely using helicopters
|
 |
The top of the mountain is the peak in the distance
a rock cabin is barely visible that was built by the CCC in the '30's |
 |
| The top of the ski lift and the valley to the east |
Originally we'd considered hiking at the top, but the 6" of wet snow we encountered gave us second thoughts. At upper elevations, any area that doesn't get direct sun has snow covering with a very definite demarcation line. Although the cloud cover had increased during the day, the wind was almost calm, belying the 20 degree temperature difference between the base and the top. We enjoyed the views before taking the next tram back down (they ran about every 30-40 minutes). With a different 'flight attendant' we learned about the TWA crash in 1983 and saw some of the wreckage still in the canyon. It took years, but the flight crew was exonerated and the cause of the crash attributed to a compass anomaly, not pilot error. When asked what was the most interesting wildlife he'd seen, our attendant said he'd once seen a mountain lion.
No comments:
Post a Comment