My Trip to Albuquerque NM for Training in My New Job

I had to go to Albuquerque for two weeks for some training in my new job. I went with 3 other coworkers. We had a great time while we were there. It was nice to have some good food for a change. I gained 10 pounds in two weeks! We ate out every night and I had sushi 3 of the nights and a lot of fish on the other nights. The traffic in Albuquerque was awesome! You can go from one end of town to the other in just 10 minutes during rush hour. The roads were wide and there are plenty of them. Our hotel was just 8 minutes from work but the best thing was that the Sandia Mountains were also only 8 minutes from work! We drove 170 miles one way on a Saturday to visit the Chaco Ruins. The speed limit was 75 mph most of the way. We drove the equivalent of driving across Puerto Rico (the long way) over 3 times that Saturday.

The Chaco Ruins were also really neat. I took a bunch of pictures of them. Unfortunately there wasn't any place to get something to eat within 90 minutes of driving and we didn't bring any food.

On Sunday I hired a guide and went rock climbing. It was hard core! I'll start by saying that serious rock climbing is not in my future. We drove to the top of the Sandia Mountain at 10,000'. We hiked down a ways to the top of a rock spire. My guide said we would rappel down 100' to a small 12" ledge. From there we would travel horizontally about 50 to another ledge. Then we would rappel down another 100' to the foot of some trees.I worked my way to the edge of the cliff and looked down. I couldn't see the bottom because some rocks were in the way. It wasn't just a hundred feet down it was hundreds of feet down. I said no way. I not going to start like this. So we hiked down the side of the spire to where we would have rappelled down to on the second rappel. From here my guide climbed to a ledge about 100 feet above. He tied into some anchor points and had me climb up to him. There were some spots that I thought I wasn't going to be able to find a way up. My guide told me to just shove my foot into a crack and reach for a hand hold. It worked but the shape of the crack opened at the bottom not the top. How did that work?

Now that I was at the top he had me rappel down. This was very challenging mentally. You don't easily lean backwards over a 100' cliff. It got easier every time I did it. I climbed up and rappelled down a bunch of times. I never would go over to the other spot with the 12" wide ledge that went hundreds of feet down.

During the second week I was able to go hiking after work almost every night. It was so easy to get there how could I not go. The hiking was good and I hiked for a couple of hours each time.