pg 18 — Arroyo Field Notes

My view of the arroyo has always changed throughout my life, at times I was deeply scared of them, while later on in life I found them to be a very freeing piece of infrastructure.

Growing up I was always told to stay away from the arroyo’s due to the many dangers that were associated with them. There is a general fear among parents in Albuquerque because of the numerous drownings and assaults that have taken place within them. I grew up in the north east heights at the base of the Sandia Mountains (right below tramway to be specific) so there were a number of arroyos that surrounded my house and school. For the most part I avoided them throughout elementary school, occasionally crossing them when I was out exploring with my friends. I remember having a hard time climbing out of the slanted sides and fearing that a random wall of water would come rushing down and take me away. There was an instance where my brother's friend’s younger brother was swept away playing in an arroyo and died, so there was a very real caution that I took when around them. (also I remember getting texts any time it rained telling people to stay away from them)
Around the end of middle school and early highschool, my older brothers and I got into longboarding. They got very good at it relatively fast while I struggled to learn how to ride down the street. As they got better, they found a community of longboarders who would ride the arroyo’s from the heights all the way down to the valley. At this time Albuquerque had become a popular long boarding destination because of them. My eldest brother was the best at riding the arroyos, investing in sliding gloves and a shorter board, he was able to ride the entire length of the arroyo with relative ease. Being able to ride the entire length of the arroyo was seen as some sort of long boarding passage within his friend group, the second eldest brother quickly caught up and was able to ride the full length within a year. I still struggled however, I had a few really bad accidents on a longboard prior that make me extremely anxious when the speed of the board begin to pick up.

Side note! When you get going fast enough on a longboard stability becomes a huge concern along with how to slow down / stop (especially when you are going 15-20 mph), thus I think the arroyos were a big destination within longboarding because they allowed for an uninterrupted straight path down into the valley, when people gained too much speed there would ride up on the side wall to shave off momentum, however while this was very good at cutting down speed it came at the risk of being thrown off your board when the ground plane suddenly changes. Also in the arroyo there is no lawn to crash into if you know you are going to fall / the sidewalk is a lot harder than the roads. So when people did fall and crash in the arroyos it was usually pretty bad, some of my brother's friends had to go to the hospital for injuries.

Anyhow, both of my brothers got good at riding them and me being the youngest and always wanted to hangout with my older brothers tried to keep up. I usually was only able to ride for about 10-15 seconds before I had to jump off people the speed freaked me out, so I would often sit down on my longboard and ride in a bobsled like posi c.