Taos Ski Valley, Inc. Alpine/Downhill Resorts Resort (Are you this resort?)

Rate This Resort

116 Sutton Place
Taos Ski Valley, NM 87525
USA

Is this resort/area easy to get to? 2
Is the parking & transportation drop-off near the lifts? 4
Walking access: distance, stairs, steep walkways 3
Trail maps/signage are easy to find and understand 5
The trails I experienced were 5
Restrooms well placed, functional and clean 4
Snow quality 4
Terrain met my expectations 5
Quality of slope grooming 5
Terrain parks and related features NA
OVERALL children's facilities: child friendly? NA
Crowds, traffic flow and lift lines? 4
Quality of on-mountain dining 4
Quality and speed of lifts 5
Rate this resort's ski/snowboard school 5
Did you get your money's worth? 5
Area shopping: includes nearby towns or villages 5
The OVERALL service at this resort is 5
Recommend this resort/area to others? 5
Would you visit this resort/area again? 100 %

Additional Data

How did you get there?: Drive
Year/Month/Day of visit (Approx. if not known): 2009/02/27
Total number of days spent on this mountain: 4

Comments

General Comments/Likes

Great and varied terrain with benchmark steep chutes. Snow can be spotty but I’ve had powder/soft snow both times I’ve been. It’s got a retro 60s-70s vibe and is very much a mountain to ski/ride more than a place to be seen. First time I was there on what was billed as the “Spring Break” weekend yet the place was uncrowded with no lift lines. More recently it seemed more crowded, perhaps because of the added riders. There is an enormous amount of in-bounds hike-to, with countless chutes and tributaries to enter off the West Basin Ridge.

The Steeps Camp is a lot of fun with 8 hours of instruction and guided skiing over two days. We hiked to Staufenberg, Zdarsky’s, Oster, Heavy Timber into Elevator, Waterfowl, and High Somewhere. Maybe one more shot I can’t remember. To mix it up we hit a number of usual tree shots: Castor, Pollox, Werner’s Chute, Lorellei Trees, North American, and somewhere between Werner’s and Pierre’s down into Longhorn. Also Reforma. With all that guided skiing, I skied Al’s by myself a couple of times just to relax.

Taos the town is also not to be missed. We stayed between the town and the mountain, at the Cottonwood Inn. The lodgings were more than satisfactory (ample rooms, all with real fireplaces, jetted baths) with great breakfasts and amiable hosts. I would recommend it. Pizzanos has great pizza and micros.

Anyone interested in the history of Taos and the development of the ski industry in the US should read “Ski Pioneers” by Rick Richards. It’s an oral history given by Ernie Blake and his contemporaries, cronies, and longtime Taos employees. It’s also a nice coffee-table book beautifully illustrated with many vintage and historical pictures. To get another view of Taos, albeit fictionalized, you will also want to read “The Milagro Beanfield War” in which what is obviously TSV and its developer play the role of villains.