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Taos Ski Week, Day 4

Apparently, ski boots don’t have to hurt. I did not know that. I thought it was just the price you had to pay for a day on the slopes. Dano tells me I should go to the Boot Doctor, one of the shops at the base of the mountain, and have them take a look at my boots. It could be that they’re too big, and I have to crank the buckles down too hard, cutting off circulation to my toes. Or, it could be that I need a new footbed. I don’t even know what a footbed is. [more]

warren's world

On Feb. 23, 1934, the starting gun went off and 57 men on skis shoved out of the starting gate at the same time. The finish line was 3,000 feet below, two miles away and none of the course had been packed. There was only a start and finish line with no gates in between. Before everyone got to the finish line, 11 skis were broken, four racers had broken legs, two others broke an arm, but only one back was broken.

Over the years downhill racing would change so that the course is now packed and control gates added that the racers have to ski through. Gradually the finishing times would get closer and closer together as the racers’ skills improved. Today, tens of thousands of dollars are spent and many weeks are taken to pack the course smooth and fast. The time of the 10th place finisher is sometimes less than one second behind the winner. [more]

Taos Ski Week, Day 3

You would think that after a storm like that the snow would be up to my eyeballs. Well, it certainly did snow enough, but the wind came and messed it all up. Today I get to chair one early enough to a few runs before the ski week class starts. As I ride to the top of the mountain, I scope out Al’s Run below me. Snow drifts four and five feet high cut diagonally across the run, but in between the drifts – a shield of ice. The wind has scoured the slopes at Taos, picking up every flake from the front side and carrying it away to...somewhere else. Although the base depth is still more than eighty inches, it’s hard as a rock.

When my group and I meet up with Dano at the mid-mountain Whistlestop cafe, he says as much. “Today, we learn how to ski the crud.” [more]

Birthing of a new tram

Jackson Hole may not have its new tram yet, but we do have “Tram-formation.com,” a new Web site for tracking all things tram. The new site provides regular updates on what’s going on with construction of the new tram. Local writer Lauren Whaley is on task and has been in touch with those in charge of getting this new lift on line in time for the ’08 season. So far she’s keeping monthly construction updates to keep us all in tune with the progress. [more]

Taos Ski Week, Day 2

Monday, 8:45am - I’m lined up with the early-birds, hoping for first chair or as close to it as I can get. I want to take a run before my second ski week lesson starts at 10:00.

It’s snowing, but not that nice fluffy snow that falls slowly, gently ironing out the mountain’s bumps and troughs. No. This snow is wind powered. It shoots horizontally across the base of the mountain. Those of us lined up at chair one duck into our coats, pull balaclavas over our faces, but we don’t get out of line. [more]

WARREN'S WORLD

It snowed at least an inch or more an hour while I was showing my ski movie and now the wind is blowing about 35 or 40 mph. The snow has stopped falling but the temperature still is. It’s 11 degrees below zero, according to the thermometer on the bank I just passed. As I try to see through my struggling, iced-over windshield wipers, I am trying to log another 100 miles before I have to stop for food at a truck stop. I need a cup of hot tea with a couple of spoons full of sugar and a big scoop of chocolate ice cream and another of vanilla to kick in my energy system so that the next 100 miles will be easier to drive. That way I will be at the ski resort I want to film tomorrow and will also be able to sleep for a few hours in my car in the parking lot before I start filming. [more]

Taos Ski Week, Day 1

It is a sunny Sunday morning in the Taos Ski Valley. I buy my special January Ski Week ticket for $75 at the Ski School office, park my skis in a rack at the base of the mountain, and walk inside Tenderfoot Katie’s Cafeteria to put on my ski boots. I’m not sure what to expect today, and I’m nervous. Will I be stuck with a group of ski school students who timidly snowplow their way down the groomers? Will I be struggling to keep up to an instructor who leaves his/her students behind? Will the instructor be a hard-ass or a cheerleader? The last time I took a skiing lesson I think I was ten years old, and no matter how many times I caught an edge or was tossed in the back seat by a mogul, the instructor applauded and told me I was doing great. I wasn’t doing great. It frustrated the hell out of me. [more]

Credit Crunch Hits the New West

The majority owners of tony Tamarack Resort in west-central Idaho, owing more than $300 million to lenders and international banks, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Boise late last week.

According to Tamarack Resort CEO Jean-Pierre Boespflug, the Chapter 11 filing will have no impact on the resort's day-to-day operation. "You can continue to do business with Tamarack Resort in a complete and normal way," he said in an interview.

The two companies named in the filings are VPG Investments, Inc. and Cross Atlantic Real Estate, LLC, which own 27 and 48 percent of Tamarack Resort shares respectively. Boespflug owns Cross Atlantic Real Estate, and VPG is owned by Mexican businessman and resort co-founder Alfredo Miguel Afif.

Boespflug said the resort was counting on a $118 million dollar loan from the French bank Société Générale to complete the resort village, but the financing fell through. Société Générale is reeling from the loss of some $7 billion in a trading scandal, and banks around the world are pulling back from many types of loans in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and related problems in the finance world. [more]

SKI QUEST

When I moved to Taos for a three-season stint back in the early 1980s, I was on a quest. I had just spent a couple of years living at a lighthouse 20 miles south of San Francisco helping run a youth hostel. It was a great gig, but far from the mountains — too far. As I plotted my escape from the Bay Area, I scoured all the ski literature I could find and narrowed my choices down to Jackson Hole and Taos. I was looking for steep and deep. I was looking for a place with some ski culture, because I wanted to be surrounded by people for whom skiing was more than just a diversion or holiday pastime.

I road-tripped to northern New Mexico in my $600 beater van, a puke-green 1975 Ford Econoline that just kept on rolling through the golden aspens of late summer, delivering me safely to the ski valley parking lot just as the summer musicians were packing up their tubas and cellos. Nobody bothered me there, and I blissfully hiked for days in the Wheeler Peak Wilderness Area to get in shape for the season. [more]

WET WINTER

Along with pleasing skiers and snowboarders, Colorado’s wet winter may help ease dry conditions in the Upper Colorado River Basin, the Glenwood Springs Post Independent reported recently. After dire-sounding predictions for a dry La Niña winter, Mother Nature turned the tables and has delivered plentiful snow. Ranchers and farmers on the West Slope are looking hopefully toward the irrigation season, feeling confident about water supplies.Snowpack levels across most of the state are about 120 percent of normal, which doesn’t sound like a huge bonus. But some newspapers say this wet winter (if it continues) could be a drought-buster. I can’t say for sure if that’s true, and I know that, by some standardized measures, at least parts of the Colorado River Basin have been experiencing mild drought conditions during recent years.

But the way the story is being reported shows the problem with the fundamental mindset of people living in an arid region. [more]

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