If the 110 trails at Taos aren’t enough, you can hike to fresh snow along West Basin or Highline.
TAOS
RECOMMENDED BY Tait Wardlaw
Tait Wardlaw has his parents to thank not only for his existence, but for his introduction to Taos at the tender age of seven.
“My parents started skiing Taos in the early 1960s, not long after the mountain opened,” he recalled. “They lived in a commuter town outside New York City called Tuxedo Park, and would go to Taos and Alta on vacation. For them it was about adventure, not luxury. When I was five or six, my dad—who was working on Wall Street as an investment banker—said enough’s enough. He wanted us to live somewhere we could have a better quality of life. By the time I was seven, we were in Taos. I had learned to ski at Sterling Forest, a small New York ski area with several hundred feet of vertical. Suddenly I was living at the base of the mountains of Taos Ski Valley. Taos is at an unusual crossroads, in terms of the quality of its terrain, the amount of snowfall, the dryness of the snow, and the amount of sun. After years of skiing in such a place, it would’ve been easy to have made the assumption that every ski area was big and steep, full of great tree skiing, deep powder, and sunshine. Yet, even as a boy, skiing with powder up to your waist, on such steep slopes, with so much sun—I knew it was special.”
The town of Taos rests in the middle of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that stretch from south central Colorado through northern New Mexico, south to below Santa Fe. Taos Ski Valley—eighteen miles north of the town—was born after founder Ernie Blake spied the basin north of Wheeler Peak from the cockpit of his Cessna 170. Blake, who already worked in the ski industry, wanted to launch an operation of his own. By 1955, he’d moved his family to an eleven-foot-long trailer in the valley, and by 1956, a J-bar lift had been installed, leading skiers to Taos’s first (and then, only) run—the trail now known as Snakedance. Today, there are 110 trails and 13 lifts, encompassing 1,294 acres of skiable terrain. The resort is still operated by the Blake family, Ernie’s grandchildren. “From the beginning, Taos has been a hard-core skier’s community,” Tait continued. “In many ways, it’s modeled on a European-style ski environment. Jean Mayer, who founded the ski school and more than fifty years later still acts as its technical director (and also built and operates Hotel St. Bernard, a popular inn at Taos), came from France. Today, you’ll often hear French, German, and Spanish spoken on the mountain.”
The stage for Taos is set before you even slide into your boots. “As you arrive in the Ski Valley, you come around a curve, and you’re faced with a very steep mountain, dominated by mogul boulevards and several chutes, dropping from the top of your sight line down to the parking lot. There’s a massive sign hanging over the ticket booth that reads DON’T PANIC. YOU HAVE ONLY SEEN 1/30 TH OF THE MOUNTAIN. WE HAVE MANY EASIER SLOPES, TOO. This section of the mountain includes two of Taos’s jewels: Al’s Run [named for Al Rosen, a Taos surgeon who continued to ski the mountain for twenty years after a heart attack, equipped with an oxygen mask and tank] and Snakedance. These two mogul runs are really pitchy and bumped up, but they’re soft moguls. If you’re at Taos, you’ve got to ski these runs under Chair One—though pretty much wherever you are on the mountain, you’ve got steep skiing, top to bottom, without much traversing.
“If you’re game for some hiking, you can head up to Highline Ridge or West Basin Ridge, off Chair 6. From here, you can look west into Arizona and north into Colorado. You can do a short hike along West Basin to some world-class chute skiing, and wind up back at the same lift. If you head east along the ridge to Highline, the terrain is a little more open. There are some classic views here; thirteen-thousand-foot Wheeler Peak is right before you. There are some cornices you can ski off from Highline, or you can keep going all the way to Kachina Peak, which is a forty-minute hike. When you finish your run and look up, you feel like you’ve accomplished something.”
One of the pleasures of skiing/boarding Taos is the opportunity to take in both the town of Taos and the community of Taos Ski Valley, which happens to be the highest-elevation municipality in the United States (with a high point of 12,581 feet). “Taos has many compelling characteristics,” Tait continued. “You have a mix of three cultures: the Pueblos, who’ve been here for eight hundred years; the Hispanics, who’ve been here more than two hundred years; and the more-recently-arrived Anglos. There are many artists here, perhaps more per capita than anywhere else. The quality of the light and the landscape above the Rio Grande Gorge are unlike anywhere else; the sunsets are ridiculously beautiful. Taos Ski Valley has a different vibe. Some call northern New Mexico the land of mañana—people take their time, put off what they can. The Valley has this extremely laid-back vibe with the skiing focus of a European resort. There’s an authenticity here, but it’s low key. It feels more like a community than any other resort I’ve visited.”
The attitude at Taos may be best reflected in the martini tree, a phenomenon introduced by founder Ernie Blake. Here’s how former New York Times music critic Donal Henahan recalled the fabled tree’s discovery in the winter of 1958–59:
He was skiing with a woman who found it impossible to continue down the slope because the light had gone bad. Ernie says he suddenly thought of a “great medical innovation” that might cure the trouble: He sent his 15-year-old son down for a Mexican porron filled with his favorite remedy, the dry martini. It worked miraculously and since that time Taos skiers have come to know that on certain days, if they look diligently, they might find martini-filled bottles hanging from trees along their way. Ernie insists that the spraying of martini into the mouth is not only therapeutic but entirely safe. “It is aerated and very relaxing.”
The martini tree, alas, no longer yields its special juniper fruits at Taos. Yet the fact that such a tree once existed certainly speaks to the spirit of the place!
TAIT WARDLAW is vice president of brand marketing/communications for Rossignol Group. Before joining Rossignol, Tait served as vice president/brand director for Dynastar, and marketing director at the Whiteface Lodge.
If You Go
Getting There: Many visitors will fly into Albuquerque and drive the 135 miles to Taos. Albuquerque is served by most U.S. carriers. Santa Fe, which is closer, has service from American Eagle (800-433-7300; www.aa.com).
Season: Taos Ski Valley operates from mid-November to early April.
Lift Tickets: Full-day tickets are $75; multi-day tickets are available.
Level of Difficulty: More than half of the mountain is classified as expert terrain.
Accommodations: You’ll find a host of lodging options at www.skitaos.org/lodging.
