In this photo, you can barely see one of the two tramcars going back down. Also in this photo, if you look to the upper right, in the cleared area, you can see the Sandia Casino at the foot of the peak. Beyond that in the extreme upper right, just below the cloud cover, is Corrales, particularly the condo complex where Carrie lives. This view is looking WNW. When you are standing on Carrie's front porch, you are looking directly ESE at the Casino and Tramway, both of which are lighted up at night. They are easy to spot from Carrie's porch.
Here are the observation deck and the top of the restaurant/bar on the peak. To enter the restaurant/bar, you climb down a flight of steps from this observation deck.
This third photo shows the place at which chairlifts arrive from the other side of Sandia Mountain for skiers to ski back down through the cleared ski slope in the middle of the photo. You can go up one side of the mountain and ski or ride down the other side. It is quite an operation. I have never been on snowskis in my entire life and never intend to be. I'll take hot-weather waterskiing any day over cold-weather snowskiing. I can't imagine anything more unpleasant than skiing down a freezing cold mountain slope. It makes me shiver just to think about it.
When I was at the Sandia Peak, it was 23 degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill factor of 17, despite the fact that at the base of the mountain the temperature was a shortsleeved, pleasant 65 degrees. The wind was blowing on the peak; and since the clouds had not all dissipated before I got there, light snow and ice were falling. Some of the cable wires had icicles dangling from them. I was up and down in less than an hour. Brrrr!
Here is an aspen tree up close. It is quite amazing that these deciduous trees can survive at such high elevations as this.
This is the massive apparatus at the top of the mountain which guides the tramcars up and down. There are three cables which regulate the tramcars. The inner cable is 1.5 inches thick, with outer steel and an inner 1/2-inch core of pure hemp fiber. The outer two cables are sturdy, thick guidewires which stabilize the tram ride along the central cable. These cables have to oiled every day.
