Mountains, Bridges and Lovers

 

A few days ago, Jen and I went into Albuquerque to run some errands and do some hiking and Letterboxing.

First we went up to La Luz Trail to look for a letterbox and do a little hiking. La Luz Trail is about 8 miles long with an elevation gain of close to 4,000ft and a steep, rugged grade of 12% as it climbs up the side of the Sandia Mountains to Sandia Crest at 10, 678 ft high.

I hiked this trail back before I had kidlets, about 18 years ago. A girlfriend and I started early in the morning, hiked to the top, and rode the Tram back down by the afternoon. It was a strenuous, long hike and the switchbacks nearly did me in, but the gorgeous vistas made it all worth it, and we had a lot of fun. I’d really love to hike this entire trail again, but with my kidlets now instead. Probably not the best idea, as I’m not in as good of shape as I was back then, and my knees and hips are creaky.

Jen and I only hiked up the trail about a mile or so, though and enjoyed the western views. Took a few photos.

We found the letterbox, which I really liked. It was called “Lover’s Rock” and was placed by a sweet couple that ended up at La Luz, perched on a large boulder to cuddle and admire the views out over the city, on their first date.

And just a year later, the man proposed to his lovely lady on that same rock. And as a tribute to this special place, they decided to place a letterbox there.  Isn’t that romantic?

After finding the letterbox, we then headed back down into Albuquerque, where we went to go look for another letterbox along a bike trail.

The bike trail was an easy walk on a paved path, but there were no trees, except for the one where the letterbox was placed, so I imagine it would be uncomfortably hot in the summertime. The day we were there was in the 70’s with a nice cool breeze.

We enjoyed sitting underneath the big old tree while we stamped into our log books.

Jen enjoyed crossing the bridges and looking down into the concrete ditch that ran alongside the bike path, too.

We had a great day in Albuquerque, made even better by our time spent outdoors finding some new Letterboxes.