Above It All ~ Sandia Peak, New Mexico

 

A couple weeks ago my kidlets and I decided to ride the Sandia Peak Tram up to the Sandia Peak at 10,378 feet.

(At the top after disembarking off the tram)

We often take road trips and tours like this as a supplement to our homeschool curriculum as there is always so much to learn when we are out doing hands-on activities, in comparison to sitting at their desks all day doing book and computer work. We also wanted to look for some letterboxes up on the peak and place one, too.

(If you look closely, you can see the two blue towers on the right side of this photo, as well as the lower Tram Terminal at the bottom right)

  

The Sandia Peak Tramway is located to the east of Albuquerque, New Mexico USA, in the Cibola National Forest. It is the world’s longest passenger tramway at a total horizontal length of 2.7 miles and a total vertical rise of 3,819 feet!

The elevation of the lower terminal is 6,559 feet, which is where we started our journey, after parking and paying for our tickets Then we were on our way!

We look at these beautiful mountains all the time, even take hikes all around the backside, bottom and sides of them, and we drive in the city of Albuquerque at least once a month, but it’s quite a different experience to see it all, looking down with a clear view from above. The kids were excited!

Well, here we are at Tower One which is located at the elevation of 7,010 feet. The height of Tower One is 232 feet and it just so happens to lean at an 18 degree angle. In this photo you can also see the boundaries of the city of Albuquerque on the left and the Sandia Pueblo Reservation land on the right. The Rio Grande River runs across the top portion of this photo (the green line of cottonwood bosque) and Mount Taylor, a stratovolcano at 11,305 ft, northeast of Grants, NM, is at the horizon.

Oh look! We’ve made it to Tower Two at the elevation of 8,750 feet, and the other Tram is preparing to slide over the tower, too. The height of Tower Two is ‘only’ 80 feet.

Now this is where it gets exciting! Traveling at 12 mph or 20 feet per second, this section between Tower Two and the Top Terminal is 7,720 feet or 1 1/2 miles long! This is the 3rd longest clear span in the world!

Jenna’s mouth was open and her eyes huge for most of the ride. She wanted to ride the tram all day long.

These next two photos, taken at the Top Terminal, give an idea of the length of the span between Tower Two and Sandia Peak.

At the Sandia Crest, elevation 10,678 ft., there is a cabin built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936 out of local limestone, built for the Kiwanis Club of Albuquerque but is known by all as the Kiwanis Cabin.

This is our view (with zoom) of Kiwanis Cabin from inside the tram. (If you look closely, you can even see hikers stepping out from inside the cabin) 

The hourly capacity of the tramway is 220 passengers at 4 trips per hour, and the tramway carries over 275,000 passengers a year.

The tramway was manufactured by Bell Engineering of Lucerne, Switzerland in 1964-66 at a cost of 2 million dollars. It is a Double Reversible Jigback Aerial Tramway. Five thousand helicopter trips were made during construction of Tower Two and the cable installation. Can you even imagine?

 

After we got to the top we did some exploring. First ,on the back side of the mountains, looking down at the ski lifts. The backside of the Sandias are basically my backyard.

Down there among those smaller mountains, at an elevation of 7,000 ft, just before the land straightens out and becomes the High Plains on it’s way to Texas, is where my family calls home.

Next on our activities list was some letterboxing and hiking.

(Ummm, just a little too steep for me and my poor knee, even with trekking poles.)

That’s Albuquerque down there. And Arizona out on the horizon.

We decided to read all the educational plaques and hike the Nature Trail instead.

 

And Jeremiah got hugged by a tree.

Jenna was a little crankypants in this photo because we had dressed for the cooler temps that are typical above 10,000 ft on top of the mountains, but the western side was much warmer that day………..

 

And the shady, tree-covered eastern side of the mountains was comfortably cool.

 

Most of the rock found in the Sandias is either sandstone, granite or limestone. Limestone is a dull, gray, homogeneous sedimentary rock. It was formed during the time New Mexico was under an inland sea, around 300,000,000 years ago. Often you can find fossils such as crinoids and brachiopod in the limestone. We were thrilled to find a gastropod fossil while hiking on the Sandia Peak, too.

We hung out at the Top Terminal to watch the sunset.

  

And we watched the trams pass each other as we waited for ours to arrive to take us back down.

And as we descended down to the Lower Terminal, we said goodbye to the Top Terminal and Sandia Peak.

Another great day exploring the Land of Enchantment!