Donate Books in the East Mountains — Tijeras, Cedar Crest & Sandia Park
Free book pickup on my East Mountain extension route — or the 24/7 drop box about 30 minutes down I-40.
The East Mountains are on my extension pickup route: Tijeras, Cedar Crest, Sandia Park, San Antonito, Paa-Ko and the NM-337 corridor, with pickups scheduled around longer runs. Mountain homes hold some of the biggest libraries in the metro, so I bring a truck sized for the job.
Schedule a free East Mountains pickup and I’ll add you to the next mountain run.
Comparing the East Mountain Library and other options? See where to donate books in the East Mountains.
Free In-Home Book Pickup Across the East Mountains
The East Mountains is the one pickup zone where the drive time makes the free in-home service the genuinely better option — I cover Tijeras, Cedar Crest, Sandia Park, Sandia Crest, Cedar Grove, and the Manzano foothills communities east of the crest. If you're on a half-acre-plus parcel off NM-14 (the Turquoise Trail) or NM-337 (the South 14), a pickup saves you the 30–40 minute drive to Edith and Montaño. Because East Mountains homes often have dedicated library rooms, cabin-style shelving, or basement-full collections, I come with the truck sized for the job and don't bill per box.
Sub-areas served across the East Mountains
I run pickups throughout Tijeras, Cedar Crest (Historic Turquoise Trail), Sandia Park, Sandia Knolls, Sandia Crest residences, Paa-Ko Ridge, the Frost Road / Juan Tomas / Chililí corridor, Cedar Grove, San Antonito, Escabosa, and the parcels along the Mountain Road / NM-337 corridor as far south as Manzano. My Edgewood neighborhood page covers the east end of I-40, and Placitas sits at the north edge of the Sandias on its own page.
What pickups typically look like here
East Mountains pickups are the largest-per-stop in the metro. Many owners are retired Sandia Labs scientists, retired UNM faculty, retired judges and attorneys who moved out to the mountains for the land, the quiet, and the wall space for a real library. Collections reliably include technical and scientific reference (physics, geology, archaeology), Native American studies, Southwestern regional history, outdoor/naturalist writing, and the hardcover literary canon of the 1960s–2000s. I've done 80-box single-parcel pickups in Cedar Crest without blinking, and I'll come back for a second run if the first truck fills.
How a East Mountains pickup works
- Text or call 505-250-3804, or use the online form — tell me what you have, plus your address plus landmarks if GPS is unreliable up there.
- I schedule it around the next East Mountain run, pairing Tijeras, Cedar Crest, Sandia Park and Edgewood stops.
- I load everything — no sorting, no boxing.
Steep driveways, dirt roads off NM-14 and NM-337, outbuildings and garage stacks are all routine. Children’s books go to community literacy partners and Little Free Libraries — the Sunflower Meadow Park Little Free Library in the East Mountains among them.
Driving to the 24/7 Drop Box from the East Mountains
About 30 minutes from Tijeras and Cedar Crest, about 40 from Edgewood: I-40 west through Tijeras Canyon to I-25, north to the Montaño Rd exit, then over to 5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A. Books in any condition, plus DVDs, CDs and other media, go in the box — here’s everything I take.
What’s on East Mountain Shelves
East Mountains shelves are the richest in the metro for nature-and-landscape writing — Edward Abbey (Abbey's 1956 UNM philosophy thesis was "Anarchism and the Morality of Violence" and his work reads at home out here), John Nichols (Taos connection, land-grant and acequia history), Leslie Marmon Silko, Frank Waters (The Man Who Killed the Deer 1942, Book of the Hopi 1963 — near-universal in the Sandia/Manzano/Jemez landscape libraries up here), and deep runs of Terry Tempest Williams, William deBuys, and Stanley Crawford. The Pueblo-facing side of the mountains — Tijeras, Cedar Crest east of Sandia Crest — also reliably turns up N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer-winning House Made of Dawn (1968), Simon Ortiz, and Luci Tapahonso on Native-educator shelves. Mountains collections also reliably contain the Tony Hillerman Leaphorn/Chee series. Photography households bring Ansel Adams monographs alongside the naturalist canon.
Stickers from Moby Dickens (Taos, 1984–2018) and Bookworks stamps turn up on mountain shelves more than anywhere else in the metro.
Questions from East Mountains Donors
Do you pick up books in Tijeras, Cedar Crest and Sandia Park?
Yes. The East Mountains are on my extension route, and pickups are free and scheduled around longer runs. Moriarty and the Estancia Valley are outside the pickup area.
How far is the drop box from the East Mountains?
About 30 minutes from Tijeras or Cedar Crest and about 40 from Edgewood: I-40 west to I-25 north, exit Montaño Rd, and go to 5445 Edith Blvd NE.
Clearing a Mountain Library?
Tell me roughly how many boxes and how to find the house, and your East Mountains pickup goes on the next run.
Schedule a free East Mountains pickup →