Last weekend, while in Albuquerque for my sister’s wedding, I convinced my brother to run up the La Luz trail in the Sandia Mountains before we had to fly out. That quickly turned into a “guys trip” with our new brother-in-law agreeing to join the adventure. Once Michelle and Sarah got word of our idea, they were game too. So in the end, my idea of running up the mountain turned into a family mission to reach the top.
Because the idea was last minute and we were not prepared at all, our “supplies” probably looked funny to the regular hikers. Just to give you a little perspective, the sun was in full force and with Dale and I lacking a full head of hair to break the UV rays, we needed some kind of cover. We ended up stripping the covers off the hotel pillows and wrapping them around our heads like bandanas. It may have looked silly, but it sure beat a bad sun burn. For water and food, I emptied all the clothes out of my backpack and filled it with Walgreen’s bottled water and granola bars. From there we were ready to set out.
The trail is about 8 miles long, but gains a lot of elevation (around 3,500 ft). It ended up taking us 3 hours to reach the top. Well, most of us made it anyway. Tim and Dale decided switchbacks were boring and blazed their own way straight up. Little did they know the trail veered south and end up way off course only to return to the vehicle covered in catcus thorns, blood and dirt. Welcome to the family Dale!
Can’t wait to try to some more mountain fun the in future. Here’s are some images of our run/hike…
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- michelle and john at the top
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- tim cleaning off cactus thorns
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- almost to the top
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- sarah crossing the rocky miles
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- michelle and dale running
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- john running
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