Snow Day Hike

My friend and I woke up about 9 am and looked at the snow flakes falling out our windows at 5000' in the Albuquerque. We got up to the La Luz trailhead around 10:30 and headed up in a thick bank of clouds that covered the entire mountain. At around 7500' we encountered a guy descending and later found out he stopped around 8400'. At 8000' the snow began to fall on and off. At 8500' the snow got deep and my pants were soaking up the moisture. After climbing in about 2 feet of snow without snowshoes to the elevation of 9100', we decided to eat our lunch and head back. As we sat there in the grove of ponderosas, the wind picked up and gave us our first real dose of cold. Slowly, we negotiated our way down on top of dog-sized boulders that mark the edge of the trail. I twisted my ankle around 9000' when the snow started to come down hard, so I tightened my boot and kept going. Luckily, the water from my pants seeped into my boots to help stop the swelling. We arrived at the trailhead to find the car covered in 2 inches of snow. After brushing the windows off several times, we carefully drove down the mountain rode in the old Volvo. On the way back one of the tires blew out and we had to change it in order to wind our way home in the snow-covered streets. We got back to our neighborhood at 5 pm.