Jennie and Stuart on the Road: Mar 28

Today was a long day. This post is delayed because I was too tired to create it after we got back.

We first went back to Petroglyphs National Monument, this time to see actual petroglyphs. We went to two different canyons. One was called Boca Negra. It is not very big but it easily accessible.

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There is a ring road that runs right along the edge of the hill. At the far end there is a trail that loops to the top for some up close looks.

The suburbs of Albuquerque have gotten quite close.

One guy really wanted a green lawn. Most people just have stone yards.

We walked around the base of the hill to another short trail.

The next section of the monument required about a 2 mile hike to see more petroglyphs. When we prepared to move there we discovered that I had left the backpack with the water and other essentials back in the RV. So we made the 20 minute round trip to retrieve it.

To access Piedras Marcedas Canyon you park in a small gravel lot next to a convenience store and then walk up a lane way between some houses. You end up in an open area where there is a trail along the bottom of the long hill. Every so often the map tells you where to look.

Whereas the first canyon had around 200 glyphs, this canyon was supposed to have at least 500. We did see a lot and I took a lot of pictures of them but it gets boring to post too many.

To see a lot of the smaller ones you had to scramble around the rocks. We didn’t bother as we were mainly here for the walk.

Part of the walk was along a dry creek bed.

We saw a few critters along the way.

Heading back to the car.

Our next destination is actually the range of mountains you can see over Jennie’s head in the picture above. There is a ski resort on the far side and it takes several hours to drive there from Albuquerque. To remedy this they built the Sandia Tram up this side which gives great views of the city.

We decided to have dinner at the Mexican restaurant at the bottom of the tram.

It was pretty good and not much more expensive than anywhere else. A bonus was that since we had eaten there we got $8 off each of our $20 tram tickets.

The ride up didn’t seem to bother Jennie. At one point the operator said we were over a thousand feet above ground and it would take about 7 seconds to hit if you fell. Very comforting.

View to the north.

View to the south.

It is about a 15 minute ride. Getting close.

Once we got up there we realized we didn’t bring the right clothes. At the bottom we had been comfortable in t-shirts. We had brought hoodies and wind breakers but the top elevation is 10,000 feet and it was hovering right around 0C along with a very strong wind if you got near the edge.

Jennie didn’t want to go out on to this viewing platform.

The view to the west back down to the city.

The view to the south.

The view over the other side to the east with the ski hill.

There are a bunch of trails that go along the crest of the mountain.

We went along one for a short while but it was so cold and slippery we quickly turned back.

Here is one of the more adventurous trails that goes right along the edge.

We got to the top at about 6 pm. The last ride up is at 8 and then they keep running until everyone is down. We decided to wait and see what the city looked like after dark.