Sandia Crest, also known locally as Sandia Peak or simply as the Crest, is a mountain ridge that, at , is the highpoint of the Sandia–Manzano Mountains, and is located in the Sandia Mountains of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States. Instead of a true summit or topographic peak, this range climbs to a long ridge line. To the east, the range slopes down from the Crest and merges into the plains below. On the west side of the Crest is a cliff; the range dramatically drops over in elevation over of horizontal distance to the Rio Grande Valley and city of Albuquerque below. It is within the Sandia Ranger District of the Cibola National Forest. The Crest features a viewing area with a shop and visitor center, telecommunications transmitters, the popular La Luz Trail, the Sandia Mountain Wilderness, and the summit of Sandia Peak Ski Area and the Sandia Peak Tramway, which is the longest aerial tramway in the Americas. Etymology Sandia Crest is named for its host range, the Sandia Mountains. Sandía means "watermelon" in Spanish, and is popularly believed to be a reference to the reddish color of the mountains at sunset. Also, when viewed from the west, the profile of the mountains is a long ridge, with a thin zone of green conifers near the top, suggesting the "rind" of the watermelon. However, as Robert Julyan notes: "the most likely explanation is the one believed by the Sandia Puebloans: the Spaniards, when they encountered the Pueblo in 1540, called it Sandia, because they thought the squash gourds growing there were watermelons, and the name Sandia soon was transferred to the mountains east of the pueblo.", The earliest recorded use of "Sandia Peak" seems to have been from local retired lawyer and skier Robert Nordhaus, who founded La Madera Ski Area in the mountains in 1936. Nordhaus installed the first chairlift to the Crest in 1962, and for the '62–63 ski season, he opened the resort as Sandia Peak Ski Area and applied the name to the summit, a southern spur of the Crest. When Nordhaus opened the tram in 1966, the tram also took the name of "Sandia Peak". Description Sandia Crest is a long ridgeline at the highpoint of the Sandia Mountains. The Crest is heavily forested, mostly with spruce and fir. There are communication radio antennae of various radio and television stations situated at