Kachina Peak chair at Taos, 4 March 2023 (notes)
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- čas přidán 8. 03. 2023
- Kachina Peak chair at Taos, New Mexico, 4 March 2023.
Taos’ famed Kachina Peak. Nothing but double blacks below it, and there’s a sign at the bottom saying no downloading, so if you go up, the only way you’re getting down is to ski it.
And you’ll hear me say in this video that I was a bit intimidated in hopping on this lift, because looking at this face from the other side of the bowl, and seeing all the moguls and chutes and knowing that all of them are doubles, you couldn’t help but to be intimidated. But I went for it anyway.
But, the good news is that the run right below the lift, called Main Street, is the easiest way down, and honestly, calling this one a double is, how should I say, generous. Certainly a single black, and to be absolutely as accurate as I can be, I’d call it one and a half black.
But really, snow conditions on this day were so good, it wasn’t much trouble for me. Maybe on some other days, when the moguls are as big as cars and nothing but ice, that would probably be unpleasant and would result in an inelegant display of skier-in-over-his-head. But this day was magic.
This season was INSANE. I had 30 good days up in Taos before they even started running the Kachina Lift. K1 through 5 were open like early Feb. if you were willing to hike it. By late Feb we were skiing first track runs in the San Juans in almost 100 inches of untracked pow. Absurd. Those are Alaska numbers. Alta had over 200% of normal snow pack by season end. I love the charilift banter too, good stuff lol
And, season is still going, and it's still snowing. We (SLC resorts) grabbed a dusting last night, more coming Friday night into Saturday, and a little more next week. I'll hit Brighton this weekend and then Solitude for every subsequent weekend until the lifts stop turning.
I visited Santa Fe and spent a day in Taos a few years ago. We went out there in early April or late March I forget. I planned on doing a real big hike up to one of those peaks but didn't realize how much snow was still going to be up there. I was hiking in a T-shirt 45 minutes away from the trailhead I planned on taking that was covered in snow.
Good morning
I plan to go at the end of March 2024, is it a good date for skiing? If I am a beginner, which places do you recommend?
End of March is almost always a great time to go, because there will still be a bunch of snow that has accumulated over the season, but by that time, the coldest of the winter temperatures will have passed. Spring skiing is excellent for beginners and intermediates.
And the other good news is that any world class resort, Taos included, will have plenty of blue and green runs open, and all the black ones, too, if you feel like challenging yourself.
For you, that whole west side under Lift 2 and Lift 8 is looking really great. And also the other side of the mountain, under Lift 4 and Lift 7 is looking equally amazing. Can’t go wrong at Taos.
I have videos of all of the lifts at Taos under my Taos playlist, if you want to check out the runs- czcams.com/video/kO7FFo88k8A/video.html
It’s running slow for an experts only lift, at 350 fpm.
Not really noticeable in this video, but it was quite windy this day. The following day, they closed the entire mountain at about noon for high winds.