Albino Polar Bear pt.1

Staying at a Holiday Inn did not make me feel like an expert at anything, but I did wake up with a mild case of altitude induced dehydration.  It's like a hangover with chapped lips, but not all of the preceding fun.  I'm like a normal sized human, I said human not American, and being normal sized you would think that I would be able to walk into a bathroom and close the door without having to be a contortionist.  I felt like I was sneaking into the bathroom, you know to scare the toilet.  I cannot fathom how someone of, let's just say of greater proportion could manage to get into the bathroom and shut the door.  That was my only gripe, and the coffee was bad.  Drinkable, but not good.  

Day after Christmas and the city is sleeping one off, the streets are dead, business closed.  We headed for the hills.  Today would be my foray into snowshoeing without snowboarding.  This was going to feel like peanut butter without chocolate, rock without roll. 

Sandia peak received 18" of snow in the last snowfall just a few days before.  We drove to the top of the Crest Trail and the road was less than clean and dry.  The parking lot was empty, the snow was deep, and the trees were loaded.  Temps were in the 20's, but the sun was out and had no competition from clouds.  Postcard views in every direction.  Sandia is a 10,000' ridge with a drop-off on the Albuquerque side (west) and a gentle slope to the east.  We hiked snowshoed the ridge, with this ginormous drop just a few meters away, but it eventually gave way to some tree covered trail all the way to the tram house.  The wind was whipping, but in the trees we were pretty sheltered. 

We made it to the tram house and decided to have a drink at the High Finance bar, highest establishment of it's kind.  Drank a beer at two miles high.  I tried in vein to find out if there was a two-mile high club.  Guess I should have asked the ladies?  After we finished our beverages we headed back out into the wilderness with a little liquid warmth and a since of head-home-ed-ness.  We backtracked half way back to the car and then decided to take some other trails.  The locals were starting to come out of the wood-work, and I asked some Nordic skiers where we were headed and they said to a different trail-head than what we wanted, so we trudged on and then decided to turn back to the car.

We made it back to the car and didn't have to resort to cannibalism al la Donner, this time.  We were still staring down a 4-5hr drive to Durango.  Time to pack up, leave and get some much needed fuel.  At the car we were engulfed with populace, the city was awake and headed for the high country.  This place had become a mad house in just a few hours.  It is most definitely time to leave.  The drive down was crazy.  Cars everywhere headed to nowhere, really there was no place for all of these cars to go.  The parking lots were at capacity.  We were starting to get a little nervous and tense with all the traffic, cars parked on the side of the road reducing it to one lane.  Oh the humanity...



Oh, no...what is going to happen?  Looks like the Duke boys got themselves into a beehive with no smoke...

To be continued...

Look for pt. 2 coming soon to magic screens near you

I captured a Snow Ninja