AMAFCA's Tumbleweed Snowman makes 2023 debut

What may be the world’s only snowman put together with a cherry picker and pitchfork is at his holiday post on Interstate 40.

Tumbleweed Snowman, a tradition started by the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority (AMAFCA) in 1995, is a prickly imperative of Albuquerque’s Christmas season.

His annual appearance north of I-40 near the AMAFCA offices at 2600 Prospect NE the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, Tumbleweed Tuesday, is a sure sign that the yuletide game is on.

Early on this Tumbleweed Tuesday, a morning numbingly cold enough to sustain a snowman actually made out of snow, AMAFCA employees finished stacking three large tumbleweeds, spray-painted white, to create the Snowman’s body.

He stands about 9½ to 10 feet tall this year, somewhat below average as Tumbleweed Snowmen go.

“He’s a little stumpy this year,” said Willie West, AMAFCA’s real estate manager.

Longtime AMAFCA employees James Moya and John Aragon, veteran hands at assembling the Albuquerque holiday icon, figure the record Tumbleweed Snowman, which made its appearance about seven or eight years ago, stood 15 feet tall.

It’s all about the size of the tumbleweeds, of course. The wetter the year, the taller the Snowman.

“The hardest thing is finding the tumbleweeds,” Aragon said.

Last year, AMAFCA had to go to Valencia County to find tumbleweeds big enough to build a respectable Snowman. But this year, all were found in Bernalillo County — one off Paseo del Norte near Fourth Street, one near Edith and Osuna and one at Ventana Dam.

Once the tumbleweeds are secured to a heavy-duty stand by a stout center pole, a skid loader moves the Snowman up to his place overlooking I-40’s westbound traffic.

“Ninety-five percent of the population is going to see him at 75 mph,” West said.

At this point, the Snowman is wearing only a rakish blue hat cut from a 55-gallon metal drum and a 22-foot-long, 14-inch-wide red and green scarf made by Moya’s mother-in-law, Liz Ortega.

“It used to be red and blue, but it has faded,” Moya said of the scarf.

Using a ladder, Moya inserted an orange ax-handle nose in the Snowman’s face; added eyes, a smile and buttons fashioned from metal discs mounted on rebar; and shoved in arms, one a broom stick and another a length of PVC pipe. Gloves made up the Snowman’s hands.

“You can’t see it from the freeway, but everything is wired together pretty good,” Moya said.

Wires secure the Tumbleweed Snowman to his stand, and the stand is bound to metal staves in the ground. Extra precautions have been taken to hold the Tumbleweed Snowman in place since strong canyon winds blew a former Snowman west about a dozen years ago. Guesses are he may have stopped around Nine Mile Hill.

Moya said the Snowman’s center pole is adjustable because rain, snow and the weight of the metal hat will depress the Tumbleweed figure, making it shorter by as much as 2 feet before it completes its stand of duty just after the new year.

West said AMAFCA board members came up with the idea of the Tumbleweed Snowman to bring attention to the agency, which is charged with maintaining 35 dams to hold water back and 240 miles of channels to divert or confine water flow.

He said the Tumbleweed Snowman has been a work in progress for 28 years.

“Some of the early ones were really ugly,” West said.

Even though he’s not so tall, 2023’s Tumbleweed Snowman is handsome enough.

And passing motorists were apparently happy to see him, honking horns in appreciation as they blurred past his smiling visage and outstretched arms.

ABQ's iconic tumbleweed snowman is back with holiday cheer