Beating the summer heat in New Mexico’s beautiful Taos Ski Valley
By Eileen Ogintz
TAOS SKI VALLEY, NM — Free Tacos anyone? Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, locals were protesting the “no snowboard” policy at Taos Ski Valley in northern New Mexico.
Depending on which version you hear, there was a typo on either “Free Taos” stickers or tee shirts and the “Free Tacos” moniker stuck. The mountain resort finally opened to snowboarders on March 19, 2008, and a run near the base was renamed Free Tacos. Every year March 19 is known as “Free Tacos Day” and at a designated time, snowboarders line up at the top of a famed black run at 3:19 pm and ride down. In unison to honor the effort of those who fought for years to get the ban against snowboarding lifted.
We learn that and other historical tidbits as we were driven in an ATV all over the mountain by Matt Kahabka, a former chemical engineer who is an EMT and ski patroller. Matt leads ATV and Via Ferrata tours in summer. Via Ferrata began in Italy’s Dolomites during World War I. Today it is an assisted high alpine climbing adventure, here featuring a 100-foot skybridge, double-cable catwalk, and fixed iron rungs in rock cliffs at 11,500 feet.
Kahabka said this is particularly popular with families with teens (kids must be 12) but don’t necessarily need climbing experience. “We find routes that work for everyone’s level of experience,” he said. “Some parents drop their kids and say, ‘bring them back tired.’”
My bad knee wasn’t up to that, but the ATV tour was a great substitute, letting us see the West Basin, famous for its expert slopes, including Kachina Peak, at 11,500 feet, the resort’s highest. We also saw the growing number of mountain bike trails and the peak of Wheeler Mountain, at 13,000 feet the tallest in New Mexico, with the most popular trailhead in the state. The trailhead also leads to Williams Lake, a 3.8-mile round trip hike with an elevation gain of 1,000 feet, very popular with families.
Many end their hike with lunch at The Bavarian, popular summer and winter, with fantastic schnitzel, wurst, goulash, fries with green chili mayo, frankfurters and chicken fingers for the kids, and the best apple strudel I’ve had outside of Germany. We sat on the deck with our little pooch, protected from the passing rain showers by big blue umbrellas.
We stayed for three days with old friends at The Blake, a luxe 115-room hotel at the base of the ski area. Ours is a two-bedroom suite complete with kitchenette and living room. The Blake is famous for using eco-friendly geothermal energy systems. There is a spa (I can’t wait for my massage), a heated outdoor saltwater pool, hot tubs, and the 192 Restaurant where we dined on steak the first night. (The restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.)
The 192, we learned, is after the tail number of the small plane Ernie Blake flew when he first discovered and scouted the valley in the 1950s. Blake, a Jew whose mother was Swiss and father was German, fled the nazis to the US in the 1930s and became a US military intelligence officer during WW2, ultimately assisting in the interrogation of leading nazis.
Always a skier, he followed his wife Rhoda to Santa Fe in 1941(they met skiing in Stowe VT).
He discovered Taos Valley flying over it, declaring there was snow when there wasn’t snow anywhere else and was determined to open a ski resort here. It opened in 1955. The Blake family, including their three kids, lived without many creature comforts for many years. There are black-and-white photos of the Blakes and the early years of the ski area throughout the Blake Hotel and other buildings.
The resort was sold in 2014 to conservationist and billionaire Louis Moor Bacon, who has initiated many major eco-friendly initiatives. “More than anything, I want to preserve the experience of a challenging and fun mountain that caters to skiing enthusiasts,” he said.
Though snowboarding is now accepted, this is still considered a skier’s mountain with half the resort featuring expert terrain. Efforts are underway to make the resort more family friendly with a magic carpet for beginners at the base, new chair lifts, and blue and green runs from near the top. The Ernie Blake Snowsports School has been recognized by USA Today as one of the best, while the resort was the first ski resort anywhere to become a Certified B Corporation by demonstrating its commitment to social, economic and environmental responsibility. The resort is now cutting its first cross country trails.
In summer and fall, it’s a hiker and dog paradise with multiple trails. “You can hike up and take a chairlift down or take a chairlift up and hike down,” Kahabka said. For the past decade, the resort has been expanding to offer a four-season experience while keeping the low-key, intimate vibe its visitors love.
There is a skating rink (soccer field and Yoga location in summer) cobbled pedestrian streets, pickleball, and platform tennis There is an onsite urgent care facility that can offer everything from IV hydration, X-rays, casts and splints for orthopedic injuries and more. You can fly into Taos from Burbank, Carlsbad, Denver, Dallas and Austin. We need to come back in winter to visit the popular Martini Tree Bar.
It seems Ernie Blake was teaching a woman and her son on the slopes when the mom got very scared at the top of a steep ski run. Blake instructed the son to ski down and bring back a very dry martini. He did that and after a few sips, she got her mojo back!
To this day, it is a resort tradition for employees to stash martinis on runs across the mountain. Instructors offer a sip or two, Kahabka explained, “when someone needs a little liquid courage.”
It is about a 40-minute drive down the mountain to the town of Taos, famous for the adobe Pueblo that has been home to the Taos Pueblo people for more than a thousand years. There are guided tours. Taos is also famous for the Gorge Bridge, 650 feet above the Rio Grande 10 miles northwest of town. It is one of the highest in the US Highway System.
Taos has long been a mecca for artists including Ernest Blumenschein and Georgia O’Keeffe and boasts, many galleries and museums. You can visit the Georgia O’Keefe home about 90 minutes from Taos in Albuquerque, but it is necessary to book far in advance. There is also an O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe.
We didn’t spend much time in Taos as the weather was so much cooler at the ski resort and we found plenty to do and plenty to eat. We loved the burgers sitting on the deck at Dalee TSV) and enjoyed the dishes, including wood-fired focaccia, and fire-roasted Cabbage at 192 at The Blake.)
We skied here decades ago when our kids were little, and the skiing was more primitive (our small son Matt rolled out of the top of a bunk bed in the middle of the night and pronounced the experience “very scary.” Our young daughter Reggie forgot to release her grip on a T-bar lift and fell, mortified and face-first, into a big pile of snow. My husband Andy Yemma remembers skiing here with college friends in the early 1970s and staying at a hostel named the Abominable Snowmansion.
Today the lifts are high-speed and the accommodations what you would expect of a first-class ski area. We must come back in winter to try these famous slopes.