Back in the Southwest

I actually landed back in the Southwest, where I spent a couple of summers as a Ranger at Philmont, several months ago, but I'm way behind on posting photos, so here's an effort to catch up.  I'm currently in Albuquerque, south of the Rockies, but home to the Sandia Crest, and awesome and seemingly random upshot of mountains rising from a base of 5,000' to a height of 10,000' nearly straight up.  To re-acquaint myself with the Southwest, and with high altitude, I decided to take a stroll.

The route I chose was pretty steep, and it being March, there was still a decent amount of snow left up at higher elevations.

Looking out towards Albuquerque.

Some of the spires around the crest can get awesomely steep, and I was feeling the elevation a bit.  It's sweet to be back in the Southwest, though.