A POTPOURRI OF SKI BITES
| By Snowsports Journalist Daniel Gibson |
There is no theme to this week’s column, rather a potpourri of shorter items. We’ll see what the national media is saying about our skiing and snowboarding, visit a few more skiing videos recently released, catch up on a smoking deal from Angel Fire Resort, and check in on conditions from Ski Apache to Crested Butte.
Press Coverage
It’s always interesting to see what the national media is reporting about our region’s snowsports scene. Here are notes on some of it this season.
Ski Magazine’s December issue had a huge spread on Telluride, as the Editor’s Choice resort for 2020–21. It devoted 18 pages to the subject, with separate articles on the skiing and snowboarding terrain, the helicopter operation Telluride Helitrax, the endless backcountry options, the historic town, the contemporary Mountain Village, things to do other than skiing (a lot of choices), and suggestions on places to eat and stay.
Its opening lines sum it up nicely. “A place that has captivated visitors since long before it even had a post office, Telluride is one of the those rare domestic bucket-list trips that’s up there with the Swiss Alps or even Japan. The place just has an aura about it. Maybe it’s the incredible scenery, unrivaled by pretty much anywhere in ski country. Perhaps it’s the laidback, pretty much anything-goes vibes of the place that makes people just want to spend time here. It certainly could be the next-level amenities on offer, or the great skiing at the resort that’s connected to town by a scenic gondola ride. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s all of these things that mesh together to serve up one of the best all-around ski destinations in the world.”
The in-depth text is matched with a batch of mouth-watering photos, from sunlit snowfields to the delectable delights of the restaurant 221 South Oak.
Taos Ski Valley was highlighted in a 10-page article in Ski Magazine’s December 2020 issue. The story, “Fear and Loathing in Taos,” focuses on a pair of friends competing in a Freeride World Tour qualifying competition on the steep chutes off West Basin Ridge during a warm cycle when the snow was “like set-up concrete,” notes author Kimberly Beekman.
She goes on to perceptively report, “Yesterday we drove up the winding two-lane road through the charmingly ramshackle town of Arroyo Seco to the little snowy pocket of Taos Ski Valley. Rounding the last bend, I caught my first sight of Al’s Run, towering straight up, with huge moguls stacked like oranges in a fruit cart. The steep road ended abruptly, and the sidewalk skirted a stream that gurgled underneath the wooden walkway and the now-shuttered Stray Dog Cantina, outside of which lounged a few of its friendly namesakes.
“We pulled up at the Blake Hotel, a charming gem that somehow pulls off being both luxurious and relaxed. In fact, Taos Ski Valley, as a whole was even cooler than I expected — a purist’s resort. Funky, quaint, unapologetically steep, with one place to buy beer and Cheetos, and zero places to buy a purse.”
Ski Video Inspiration
Last week’s column about the video on ghostly former resort of Ski Rio got me looking deeper into the avalanche of skiing and snowboarding content on YouTube. With the pandemic putting a bit of a brake on actually going skiing, I’ve found myself watching more of this eye candy, and I uncovered some diamonds in the fluff.
A series of subscription-based videos, Abandoned picks up where The Ghost Ski Resorts: Ski Rio left off, with a series of short videos about former ski areas. A free teaser zooms in on Geneva Basin, off Loveland Pass, which opened in the early 1960s as Indian Head. It closed decades ago, but is freely available to anyone willing to skin up, as a group, we discover, does regularly. Colorado used to have some 200 ski areas but only 30 are still active, so this series has legs! See it at this link.
Turns All Year follows a year in the skiing life of 59-year-old Coloradan Carl Zimmer, who has skied every month for 32 years. It has some amazing scenes of high alpine treks and descents in vast bowls above tree-line, including one in the Yankee Boy area near Ouray, where he grew up. There are also miserable slogs in September to ski steep, narrow slivers of snow bounded by boulders. The quest basically runs his life, but he has found a brotherhood of like-minded souls and has a saint for a wife. Watch it here.
The Fifty Peak Obsession is a series of 45–60 minute videos that document professional skier Cody Townsend’s ambitious goal of hiking up and skiing down all featured runs in the acclaimed 2010 book by Chris Davenport, Art Burrows, and Penn Newhard titled The Fifty: Classic Ski Descents of North America. A free 33-minute “teaser” captures the sufferfest to bag Meteor Peak in Alaska —which included a 14-mile hike and 6,000-foot ascent that took the party 18 hours — and the relatively easy up but harrowing down on Alaska’s Pontoon Peak. Check it out here.
Daniel Gibson is the author of New Mexico’s only comprehensive ski guidebook, Skiing New Mexico: Snow Sports in the Land of Enchantment (UNM Press, 2017). He is a member of the North American Snowsports Journalist Association and has written on the topic for newspapers coast to coast, web sites, and magazines including Powder, Ski and Wintersport Business. His first day on wooden skis with wooden edges came at age 6 in 1960 on a snowy day at the former Santa Fe Ski Basin. He can be reached at [email protected] or via www.DanielBGibson.com.
This article was posted by Cheryl Fallstead
