Taos Ski Trip

We left Mission on January 16, to slowly move west, planning to end up in Sacramento for a couple of months beginning mid-February. Since we aren’t on a strict schedule, we decided to make a couple of side trips along the way. Our first stop was back to Bernalillo, New Mexico (right next to Albuquerque) to position ourselves for a trip to Taos Ski Valley for a two day ski trip. Taos Ski Valley is about 125 miles from Albuquerque, but at 10,000 plus elevation, nowhere we wanted to take our 5th wheel. Bernalillo sits at about 5000 feet, and was cold enough! We had a couple of mornings down into the mid teens, and the highs no more than the mid 40’s. This was quite shocking, after spending six weeks in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas with highs mostly in the 70’s and 80’s! So, we left the 5th wheel in Bernalillo, and drove to Taos Ski Valley for a mini ski vacation. The place we stayed was a Bed & Breakfast of sorts called Austing Haus, a charming chalet-like lodge located just about a mile from the ski resort. (I’ve included a picture of Austin Haus with this post.) We arrived on a Tuesday night following a few days of fresh snowfall. Wednesday was bright and sunny, very cold (low at zero, high only 24), and a perfect day for skiing. We hit the slopes at 9:30 and skied until 3:00 with only a couple of breaks for coffee and lunch. We had tentatively planned to ski Thursday as well, but it started snowing overnight, and Dan twisted his knee skiing some bumps, so we decided to call it done after the one day. We did a little shopping in the ski village, and headed back to Bernalillo. Dan had been to Taos Ski Valley several years ago, but this was my first trip. This was somewhere he really wanted to return to and was excited about sharing the experience with me. Although the trip was brief, it was fun and well worth the effort.

Next stop: Mesa, Arizona!