Taos- The nicest place in New Mexico to ski
Written: Jan 04 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: good ski school, nice runs, no lift lines, lots of hard slopes for advanced people
Cons: man-made snow, sort of icy, expensive food
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| bkaysimon's Full Review: Taos |
Taos was our resort of choice for a youth ski trip sponsored by our congregation over winter break. The group has been going to Taos for 10 years now, but this would be my first time at this particular resort. I enjoyed my time at Taos, but I have been to much better resorts. I'll explain why in a minute.
To begin with, the Taos ski area is somewhat intimidating to the beginning skier. I am an intermediate skier personally, but we had seven on our trip who were first-time skiers and I saw the look of terror in their eyes when we first saw the ski area. The face o the mountain is home to about 15% of the total ski area at Taos, so all you see are a handful of very difficult runs and no easy ones.
Our group of beginners all took ski school classes, and I would say five out of the seven were pleased and had really great instructors. Two of our girls must have gotten a really rotten instructor, because they needed a lot of help and more coaching from one of our experienced adults on the trip after "graduating" from their ski school class. I did spend some time over on the bunny slopes filming our beginner skiers and took notice of what seems to be an excellent ski school environment. They have a very small run to help get you starting, moving up to a larger run which is probably only 120 yards in length and most, and finally the "big" bunny slope which gives the first time skier a pretty good idea of what to expect up on the mountain on the green slopes. Taos is known for its excellent ski school, and I can see why.
I spent my two days of skiing checking out the green runs and the easier blue runs. I found them to be very enjoyable runs. I stayed away from the harder blues and black runs altogether (For those who are not familiar with ski runs, the difficulty of the run is marked by color, green being easiest, blue next, black the most difficult and double black diamonds being extremely difficult.). I am capable of skiing these types of runs; I have done so at many resorts on many other occasions. But the snow at Taos kept me off of them for the simple reason that it was a bit to icy for me. I have always traveled to Colorado to do my skiing, and my favorite ski condition is powder. The more powder, the better. I would not have much luck in the powder are at Taos. They had not received snow in ten days when we were there, so a lot of what we were skiing on was man-made. It was not bad, but just not the same. I do not like skiing in icy conditions, and many of the runs had large patches of ice that made it very easy to fall and injure yourself.
We never had to stand in a lift line once. There are 12 lifts at Taos and the most I ever waited at a line was maybe a minute. Only 10 of the lifts were open while we were there, but they did not keep up from reaching all the available slopes. Some of the more difficult slopes were closed, probably due to the lack of snow, but about 90% of the mountain was open.
I was amazed at the number of difficult and extremely difficult runs at Taos. I spoke to a gentlemen on a lift at one point who told me Taos was well-known for it's difficult skiing. I would say about 50% of the total ski runs at Taos were designed for the advanced skier. I was even told some of the extreme slopes could only be reached by hiking up to them after taking a lift most of the way. I'm not suite that advanced, so I'll leave those runs to the experts!
The dining at Taos was good but very expensive. My brother and I spent $23 on lunch for the two of us one day, and we ate hamburgers and chips. I highly recommend taking a sack lunch if you can, because you will save a lot of money on meals alone if you do. There were quite a few restaurants to choose from and a small bakery shop that served the best hot chocolate I have even had. Gift shops were plentiful, but again, pretty expensive. They were no higher than one might expect on the mountain, but if you are not prepared for the cost you would be in for a surprise.
Overall I enjoyed my time at Taos, but I have been to resorts in Colorado that I have enjoyed a lot more. It was a fun trip, and I recommend it for those looking to got to New Mexico to ski rather than farther north.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
bkaysimon
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Location: Killeen, Texas, USA
Reviews written: 99
Trusted by: 40 members
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