by Doug loves his tram, cogway railroads, funiculars, and aerial cable cars, so of course we took a ride on the Sandia Peak Tramway, an aerial tramway outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico (new state!). The tram goes up to a ridge of the Sandia Mountains.
At 2.7 miles, the tram is the longest in the Americas, and the third longest in the world. It took more than 5,000 helicopter trips to move people and materials in order to build the project. The tram opened in 1966, with new cars installed in 1986 and 2016, and new cables in 2009.
The tram starts at 6,559 feet of elevation, and ascends to 10,378 feet. The trip takes 15 minutes, moving at 13.6 mph.
On a clear day, 11,000 square miles of Albuquerque and surrounding New Mexico countryside can be seen.
The tram starts a journey every 15-20 minutes, and tickets are sold for a two-hour window. This means you can wait in a very long line to get on a car –– we waited about 45 minutes, but when I purchased our tickets shortly before, more than half the tickets for our time slot were still available.
I can’t imagine it’s very fun when it’s very busy or sold out, especially since you could find yourself doing the same wait on the way down.
There’s a restaurant at the top (you get priority boarding on the tram if you have a reservation) along with some hiking trails. You can buy a one-way ticket to ride up to the top, then hike the 12 miles or so down. (Obviously, we opted for the round trip ticket!) We did walk around the top a bit, taking in the views and doing some birding. Almost every bird we saw was a lifer, so that was fun!
