Taos

Before we decided to do a road trip this winter I had texted Chelsea and said, let's see if we can get jobs at Taos Ski Valley this winter and live there.  Neither of us had skied there before, in fact neither of us had even been to New Mexico before, but it seemed like a great idea and we were pretty set on it for a while.  After more thought, we decided we had been working too much and should take some time off for retirement and another big trip.  We decided that we still wanted to ski Taos on our trip even though it wasn't included on our pass.

We arrived in New Mexico earlier than we had planned.  I had texted an old friend in Albuquerque and said, "I think we will be there in a few days" and the next day I sent her another text, "We'll be there in four hours.. surprise!"  Lissie was not thrown off by our surprise, and welcomed us to New Mexico with open arms.  I volunteered with Amigos de las Americas with Lissie in 2006, when we lived together in a rural village in Honduras.  I hadn't seen her in about nine years, so it was wonderful to catch up.  We spent a day exploring Albuquerque, mostly through our taste buds.  We started with a loaf of New Mexico Green Chile bread that popped out of the oven only moments before we began devouring it.  We moved on to tortilla soup at the Frontier and just got fuller from there.  In the afternoon we drove up to Taos and were very surprised at how big it was.  We hadn't really realized that there was the town of Taos and then another 20 minutes away was Taos Ski Valley, the actual resort, and a very small town itself.  

In the morning, we headed up to the mountain and immediately felt we were in a good place when the parking lot had a sign that said "7 day parking limit," essentially a free camping sign.  We were also encouraged by the price of the daily lift ticket, $82, no where near the astronomical prices of California and Colorado (a daily ticket at Breckenridge is $140, I shit you not).  We had a great day skiing in the bright New Mexico sun.  Taos is a pretty tough mountain with about 50% of the terrain being advanced.    There is a lot of terrain that can be hiked to as well.  For some reason, I was skiing really terribly all day, and the mountain doesn't really give you any breaks, but we still had a blast.  It was great to see locals skiing in cowboy hats and jeans with gaiters on.  The employee uniforms were Carhartt jackets.  The whole vibe on the mountain was very laid back and friendly and the right amount of funky.  

We decided to ski just one day to save money, and because the mountain could use a bit more snow.  We slept in the parking lot and took two really stellar hikes the next day.  There are tons and tons of hiking trails near to the resort.  The dogs had a blast, we saw lots of beautiful scenery, and we even happened upon a backcountry hut, which we will definitely stay at next time we are here.  When we hit the road again, we were feeling very relaxed and satisfied with our time in New Mexico.  Taos gets my #1 vote so far for best vibe at a ski area.