Sandia Peak Ski Area, originally La Madera Ski Area, is a ski resort located in the Sandia Mountains in northeast Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, immediately northeast of the city of Albuquerque. It is part of a Special Use Permit Zone in the Sandia Ranger District of the Cibola National Forest. It is New Mexico's first ski area, opening to skiers in 1936. It features Sandia Peak Tramway, which was until 2010 the longest tramway in the world, and remains the longest in the Americas. The resort includes 35 ski runs and a terrain park, and also serves as a site for summer recreation. It is one of the few ski resorts in the US that can be directly accessed from a major city.
Etymology
Sandia Peak was originally known as La Madera Ski Area, named after the nearby La Madera canyon. "La madera" is Spanish for "the wood", referring to the timber resources in the area.
"Sandia Peak" is not an actual topographical peak, but rather a spur of the highpoint of the Sandia Mountains, Sandia Crest. The name "Sandia" comes from the Spanish word for watermelon: "sandía". One theory suggests that this name came from the appearance of the mountains from the Rio Grande Valley below: an inverted watermelon slice-shaped range with a ridge of green forest at the top (the "rind"). The exposed granite of the range, the Sandia granite, appears pink with the setting sun.
History
La Madera
The Albuquerque Ski Club, founded by Robert Nordhaus, a retired lawyer and father of Nobel Prize-winning economist William Nordhaus, cleared ski runs in the Sandia Mountains at Tree Springs in 1935. The club then opened La Madera Ski Area in 1936 with a rope tow. Two trips on the rope tow costed 50 cents. The following year, a second rope tow was installed to Panoramic Point, and a ski lodge, Double Eagle II Day Lodge, was constructed. In 1939, La Madera hosted New Mexico's first downhill ski race.
The resort closed to the public at the outbreak of World War II and remained so until the war concluded.
After the war, the upper rope tow was removed and a state-of-the-art T-bar lift, Constram Lift, was installed in 1946. With a rise of and length of , it was the longest T-bar lift in the US. The ice skating rink was installed in 1947, and a bunkhouse built in 1948. During this time, a lift ticket on Constram was $3.50, and ski lessons were $3.
In 1951, ownership of La Madera was transferred to the City of Albuquerque for the 1951-52 ski season, and subsequently lost money during the operation. The following season, ownership was transferred back to the Albuquerque Ski Club, which then turned a profit of $2,500. In 1958, Nordhaus and his business partner, balloonist Ben Abruzzo, who had helped turn Albuquerque into an international ballooning destination, purchased La Madera from the club. During this time, lift tickets were $3.50 per day and $25 for a season pass. A six-day lesson costed $12.
Sandia Crest Rd, which replaced the old dirt road between Sandia Park and La Madera, was constructed in 1960. It improved access to the resort dramatically, helping turn a trip of "several hours of potholes and mud to an easy 45 minute drive". Sections of the old dirt road are still visible to the south of the new road.
Sandia Peak
In 1962 and 63, the first chairlift, aptly named Chairlift #1, was installed, and the name of the resort was changed to Sandia Peak Ski Area. Nordhaus was inspired to build an aerial tramway from Albuquerque to the ski slope after seeing other trams during a trip to Europe. Bell Engineering of Lucerne, Switzerland, was contracted to design and construct the tramway. Construction lasted two years, and was aided by over 5,000 helicopter trips. Testing took an additional 60 days. Sandia Peak Tramway entered service on May 7, 1966. It is, as of 2022, the longest aerial tramway in the Americas, and remained the longest in the world until being surpassed in 2010.
Future
In 2017, the US Forest Service adopted plans outlined in the resort's 2016 master plan for a "Four Seasons Activity Area", including a food service yurt, two ziplines, and a mountain coaster (a type of tracked sled ride), which was to be built at the summit in the summer of 2022, but was placed on hold that year due to world events and public misconceptions of ecological impact. When finished, it will provide additional year-around recreation at the resort. The coaster will be the first mountain coaster in New Mexico and the southernmost in the US.