Sandia Peak

Sandia means watermelon in Spanish.  The peak was named by the Spanish for the sunsets that colored it pink each evening. 

We went up to the Peak in the Sandia Tram at 11am and traveled through

some clouds to get there.  It is a 2.7 mile ride up the side of a mountain to a peak of more than 10,000 feet.  It boasts that it is the longest (not the highest) tram in the world.  It boasts incorrectly as of 2010 though.  It seems it was beaten out by 3.5 mile cable car ride spanning a gorge in Armenia.

For the jet set among us, 2.7 miles translates to a height of 3,255m.  That's is about 500m (and a few thousand dollars) shy of a cable car ride in Chamonix for an up-close look at the Alps rather than an overview the Rio Grande Rift Valley.  Actually, we did learn that the Rift Valley is one of four places in the world where the land is actually stretching.  The land on west is moving westward faster than the land on the east. thus the stretch and valley.

Sandia is place people go to go to ski, to hike, and to just look in wonder.  When the dinosaurs roamed the land, this area used to be a shallow sea.  Over time, the land pitched and heaved and the limestone and fossils you would have found at the bottom of the sea are now at the tops of the mountains.

When we went it was a whopping 1 degree Farenheit at the top of the mountain.  Remember what I said about dry cold?  I take it back.  I must have minimized the wind factor.  Dry cold really is easier to take that wet cold.  Not --- that it wasn't cold.  It was.  But easier to withstand than a wet 1 degree.

Surprisingly, it is all privately owned.  The owner or owners decided to borrow a European fashion and designed a tram to make mountain access easier for skiers.  It has grown significantly in popularity and use since its inception.

The restaurant at the top is called High Finance which seems to speak frankly to the large amount of money involved in putting this whole thing together -- and perhaps the large amount of money they hope you'll spend while you're there.

After spending about seven and a half minutes outside, we took refuge in High Finance. You just have to let go when you walk into a restaurant with that name.  It's 1 degree outside, and you're at the top of a mountain.  To their credit, they had very friendly waitstaff, fantastic hot chocolate, the best view ever -- and their food was overflowing.  

We also met three people -- yes, three people -- from Burke, Virginia, in that restaurant.  There we were, on Sandia Peak, in High Finance, talking about Lake Braddock Secondary and Burke, VA, with the waitress and a couple of other patrons.  

By the way, we took more than half our meal back down the mountain with us.