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About Me:

My name is Steph, and I am a senior Marketing major with a Communication Studies minor. Since this is my last year at Butler, my main goal is to enjoy every moment that I have left, while doing as much as humanly possible. I am a marketing analyst at the Butler Business Accelerator, a Speakers Lab tutor, and a Butler blogger (obviously). I also am an Alpha Phi, the President of the Butler University Student Foundation, a member of Alpha Kappa Psi (a professional business fraternity), and a member of the Butler American Marketing Association. In the small amount of free time that I do have, I love crafting, watching large amounts of television, and enjoying my favorite comfort foods, like sweet tea.

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Posts Tagged “Sandia Mountains”

A Photo Summary of my Thanksgiving Vacation

Posted on November 26, 2011 by Stephanie

I’ve been in Albuquerque with my sister, Natalie, and brother-in-law, John, for about 6 days now, so I figured that the best way to share all of the cool things that I have done here would be in pictures….so here we go:

Sunday: Natalie and John are big time football fans, so every Sunday, John moves the TV from their bedroom into the living room…and the day is devoted to football and only football.

Their Sunday afternoon routine....

Monday: My sister and I shopped…shopped…and shopped some more.  She taught me how to coupon at grocery stores and even at Target (a college kid’s dream), and then we visited their outdoor mall and had the chance to grab some more bargains.

Tuesday: We started the day by picking up John’s brother, Paul, at the airport, then we did some sightseeing around town.  We ended up at Old Town, an area of shops, restaurants, and some historical sights in Albuquerque.

A 300-year-old church in Old Town...

Later that night, we took a tram up to the top of the Sandia Mountains to see the sunset.  They are called the Sandia Mountains because they turn to a watermelon-ish color at sunset, which was beautiful…but I didn’t get any photos of that.  These will have to suffice.

It was gorgeous to say the least….

The sunset over Albuquerque...

Wednesday: We hiked all the way to the top of the mountain (it was 6 hours of hiking, in case you were wondering), and then took the tram back down.  It was pretty cool to see everything again, but in full daylight this time around.

One of the towers that held the tram together...

The view from the tram...

We were really impressed with ourselves for hiking all the way up…so now we obviously feel like the mountain is ours, like we own it.

Our mountain....

Thursday: Thanksgiving Day….which I will blog about…later!

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My Journey to the Top of the World: Part II

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Stephanie

Yesterday, I went hiking for the first time, on the Sandia Mountains with my sister, Natalie, her husband, John, and John’s brother, Paul.  We planned for about a 6 hour hike, but we weren’t positive about where we would stop and everything until halfway through (check out Part I if you haven’t yet).  Long story short, we decided to push through and hike to the top instead of stopping.  We googled the trail, and found out that there were 19 switchbacks, and then about a mile of pretty easy trail after that until we could be at the top.  So….we kept hiking.

At first, we were really glad that we kept going, because we were getting into a more rocky hike with snow, and it was way more fun than the first half.  The views were amazing…so obviously we knew that it was worth it….

Natalie was ready to go...

Then, we realized that we were pretty close to being out of water, and we knew that we were not even close to being finished.  Right around then we got into an area with tons of snow….so we decided to eat that instead….which worked out pretty well.

Snow...our makeshift water.

Since we knew that there were 19 switchbacks left, we counted them.  The first few were alright, and then they started getting harder and harder.  Around switchback #8, it hit us….and it was a legit struggle.  There was snow all over the trail, it was really steep, and it was outrageously long…and I thought that I was going to die.  But, somehow we pushed through…and made it through the worst of the switchbacks.  Around #14, they started getting significantly shorter, and after #19 we only had about a mile or so left…and it was cake.

This was my favorite view…by far.

Even though the last mile really wasn’t awful (except for all of the mud from the melted snow)….we had been hiking for almost 6 hours….and we were exhausted and hungry…really hungry.  We started hiking around 9:45, and lunchtime came and went…but we didn’t really have a choice but to keep hiking.  Around halfway through, Paul offered to buy everyone lunch at the restaurant at the top of the mountain if we made it up there….so that was really pulling us through.  We each knew that we wanted a coke, a water, and something really unhealthy….so that was really all that mattered to us.  So as soon as we made it to the top….we went straight to the restaurant and got down to business. We ordered four cokes and four waters, told them to keep the refills coming…and we got an order of onion rings and chips and queso.  Perfection.

Onion rings and our chips and queso....amazing.

The leftovers of the best cokes we had ever tasted....

So, 6 hours and 10 miles later, we were finished.  It was the most exhausting day ever to say the least…but now at least we can each say that basically we own that mountain now….because we hiked it and took names while doing it.  Forget the fact that we rode the tram back down the mountain…because we were really not wanting to work our way all the way back down.  It wasn’t being lazy, because #1 – nothing is considered lazy after you hike for 6 hours and #2 – we were just being time conscious, obviously.

My sister and I at the top of the mountain...

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My Journey to the Top of the World: Part I

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Stephanie

Something that most people don’t know about Albuquerque is that the city is set in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, and that it is actually the highest elevated metropolitan city in the US.  So one of the things that we wanted to do while visiting over Thanksgiving Break was hike up the mountain (I know, I didn’t go to the top of the world…it was closer to 2 miles above sea level…but it sure felt like the top of the world).  We set out around 9:30 this morning, and I’m pretty sure that I was definitely not prepared for what was coming.  First off, I’m not really what you would consider “in shape” at the moment, because with school, work, and extracurriculars, I barely have time to sleep, let alone work out.  Secondly, I’m pretty afraid of heights…including standing on top of mountains…or walking along trails that drop down into rocky pits of death.  So…I knew this was going to be an adventure…no matter what.  We started off on the Tramway Trail, which didn’t really take us up the mountain, but it led us around the foothills to the La Luz Trail, which would take us all the way up.

Great, so if we don’t just fall off the mountain, the fires will get us instead.

We set out on our hike…and of course we stopped to take pictures every once in awhile.  But at the beginning my brother-in-law, John, told us to save our pictures for later….because the view didn’t even compare to what was coming.  He was definitely right, but here are a few pictures from the beginning anyway….

The side of the mountain and Albuquerque…
Just posing a short way into our hike…this is my only photo of myself…since past this point I couldn’t totally feel my legs.

As we hiked up the mountain, we kept talking about where we wanted to stop and turn around, or if we wanted to go all the way to the top and take the tram down.  (There was a tram that led from where we started to the top of the mountain, so it would save us the couple hour hike back down the mountain.)  We decided that we would just wait until we got to the lookout point, and we would make the final decision then.  Of course, it took forever to get to the lookout point, and we were basically exhausted by that point.

My brother-in-law, John, just taking a nap at the lookout point…

But, fortunately…the view was completely worth it.

My favorite view from the lookout…

While we were resting there, we decided that we would much rather push through and go all the way to the top, because it would actually be a faster hike than trying to go back down the mountain.  I was really feeling pretty decent at that point (besides the fact that my right calf had been hurting for a few hours, and my legs were slowly turning to jello)…we were about 3.5 hours into the hike…and I figured that I could make it…so we went for it.  Check back tomorrow for more about our hiking adventure….the second half was rough to say the least.

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