The Roots Tour: Taos, 2017 Day 5

We ski K-peak twice today, despite the low cloud cover.  B and P also ski Al’s Run (showoffs) and K-Peak a third time while I take a ranger tour and learn about the mountain and how the ski area works with the Forest Service and the Pueblo and how they plan for development and wilderness areas and avalanche control.  Ranger Kevin was a font of knowledge and TSV mountain maintenance and Ski Patrol guy Rey was possibly a bit baked after 57 years of skiing here, but he made me feel a lot better about avalanche rescue. 

Here are some random bits that I learned on my tour. 

-  - All of aforementioned about the development of Kachina Peak.
- - All of the land of TSV except for a tiny triangle under Lift 1 is leased from the Forest Service. 

-  - TSV is a class A or something like that area for avalanches, which means that the Ski Patrol and Forest Service have to work with the resort management to mitigate those risks, via controlled slides.  There are signs warning you to STAY AWAY if you see any of these explosives, and you can see where slides have taken out great swathes of trees at various parts of the resort.  A particularly dramatic slide almost buried the Phoenix Lodge a few years ago, but took a turn at a rocky outcropping at the last minute and went into the parking lot instead.  You are glad that management listens to the Ski Patrol and the Forest Service when it comes to avalanches. 

-   - If you are in a slide, the dogs will find you within about two minutes, but it takes up to ten minutes for the dogs to get there, and possibly up to ten minutes for word to get to the Ski Patrol, so if your survival window is 30 minutes, that is some close math.  Still, life is better with the dogs than without. 

-   - Pines come in pairs (the needles bunch up), spruces are single, and firs are flat (the needles really are kind of flat).

-   - The new management (that hedge-fund billionaire) really is committed to keeping Taos viable and sustainable.  Ranger Kevin seems to be a fan.

-   - Except he’s not so sure about proposals to open up backcountry skiing off the ridge.  There is interest in that from the higher-ups, and from skiers who want to get into the Wheeler Peak Wilderness Area, but the potential for a) draining resources and b) disaster is high.  Areas that are designated as National Wilderness[1] are supposed to have minimal human imprint, no enterprises, and no motorization.  Apparently when they have to clear hiking trails (hiking is not imprint, apparently), the Forest Service uses crosscut saws – because chainsaws have motors, that’s how devoted they are to this idea of wilderness.  So what do you do when a skier gets in there and breaks his leg and needs to be airlifted out?  Or you have to launch a search for a lost group?  And you have to be staffed to handle these emergencies.  The week before we arrive, a snowboarder got lost off the western side of TSV, and spent a very cold and dangerous night out in the forest.  The next morning, some of the TSV lifts had to be shut down because there were not enough ski patrollers to simultaneously patrol the mountain and search for the lost fella.  More skiers in the backcountry means more pressure on existing search-and-rescue resources, not to mention the potential imprint on the wilderness area.  So, that’s a conundrum they are wrestling with at TSV. 

-   - The ranger tour here is about three times as long as the one at Sun Valley. 

-   - Ranger Kevin spends several days a week at various ski areas in Northern New Mexico, checking out safety and conditions and chatting up turistas like me.  Being a skiing forest ranger may be one of the greatest jobs on earth. 

My advice to skiers is:  if your resort offers a Ski with a Forest Ranger tour, you should take it. 

Back to that drive (you can’t HIIIIIIIIIDE your lyin’ eyes).  About half of it is on the flat mesa, then you head up the valley on a twisty road.  But before you get to the mountains, you turn sharp right-left-right through the bustling metropolis of Arroyo Seco.  I remember it as a dusty collection of cheap ski lodgings, and indeed, the ramshackle SNOWMANSION, with its off-kilter curtains and possibly an ancient VW bus permanently parked out front is still there.[2]  But Arroyo Seco is now happening.  There are cute shops, hot yoga, and most important of all, the world-famous Taos Cow café and ice cream shop.  The TC is perfectly positioned for a post-ski treat, indeed, it is not uncommon to overhear at ski school pickup: canwegototaoscoooooow?  We are not the first skiers to stop today, and sample caramel piñon, Mexican chocolate, and lemon while wandering the vibrant block that is Arroyo Seco. 

Icy deliciousness does not dampen our appetite so we hit up the Guadalajara Grill tonight for dinner, on the overheard recommendation of our waitress at Doc Martin’s the previous night.[3]  She was telling another customer that she never goes anywhere else for Mexican food in town, and we thought, well, maybe her cousin owns it but we’re game so let’s give it a try.  Peter has something enormous called an Aztec quesadilla, which looks like a giant Mexican pizza.  I don’t know if the Aztecs ate this, he says, but I like it.  Huge plates of cheap Mexican food, very cold beer, and the world’s biggest fried ice cream for dessert.  What’s not to like?

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[1] From the National Wilderness Act of 1964, of which Wheeler Peak, right behind Kachina, is at 13,159 feet the highest peak in New Mexico. 

[2] If there isn’t an ancient VW bus parked outside the SNOWMANSION, there should be. 

[3] Doc Martin was the local – wait for it – doctor, around the turn of the 20^th c.  He treated everyone, regardless of cost, and was something of a local legend because of this.  He also had a compound of houses and offices, which have been turned in to the fantastic Historic Taos Inn with one of the great neon signs of our age, promising “Lodging Dining Curious Vacancy.”