Transcending Time at Taos

If any ski resort could be called spiritual, surely it is Taos. Now more than 40 years old, Taos radiates its own gestalt, a blend of European ambience, American efficiency, small-town friendliness, Southwest magic realism. Call it burrito meets bratwurst. Call it mellow--as long as your definition of “mellow” includes enough double-diamond trails to make even demonic experts linguine-kneed before making that first turn. Or simply call it the most unusual big ski resort in the American West.

What is missing from Taos Ski Valley? High-speed quad lifts, snowboarders, employees with attitude, fashion plates and celebrity-hunting paparazzi, for starters. In an era of conglomerate resort ownership and condo empires, New Mexico’s largest ski area is still run by the family of its founder, Ernie Blake, and it is his idea, not an accountant’s bottom line, that rules.

Taos Ski Valley takes its name from a storied village and a legendary pueblo. As my friend Susan and I drove toward the valley one bright day last January, we paused at Taos Pueblo. We wandered through the silver-jewelry shops and felt the power of the pueblo’s timeless splendor in the cold light of a winter afternoon.

The winding 19-mile drive from the town to Taos Ski Valley was uneventful, until suddenly we were staring uphill not only at the legendary moguls of Al’s Run but also at the freshly painted four-story facade of the Inn at Snakedance, the newest and most ambitious lodge at the resort base.

The hotel will shock Taos veterans who have not been there in some time because it has replaced the Hondo Lodge, a hovel of a hostel that had squatted in that spot for 45 years. As a welcoming bellman took our bags, our shock turned to relief. Certain improvements do live up to that description, and the Snakedance, with its modern rooms and professional service, clearly was one of them.

Few new hostelries in ski country offer such a combination of convenience and unpretentious comfort. The rooms were not large, but unlike those at the older valley hotels, they had up-to-date accouterments, including televisions, phones and humidifiers. The service was both friendly and efficient, and the complimentary breakfasts offered hearty fare such as waffles and omelets as well as cereals, bagels and muffins.

The entrance to Taos Ski Valley has been updated in other ways as well. The sign that greeted skiers in the old parking lot: “Don’t panic: You are only looking at 1/16 of the mountain. We have easy runs too!” is still there, but you have to search for it.

The entire parking area has been plumped up (it was paved in advance of this season’s mid-December opening), and although the trusty old-time St. Bernard, Edelweiss and Thunderbird hotels are still there, you need to look carefully to pick them out among the newer structures, which include an updated shopping area, ski rental station and cafeteria.

Our first morning was typically northern New Mexico; the sun soon took some of the chill out of the January air. The sky is a blue so extravagantly deep that not even Crayola can match it. There was no wait to climb aboard the slow chairlifts taking us up, up, way up into the Sangre de Cristo mountains, beyond Al’s Run, above the invitingly wide intermediate slope called Powderhorn, beyond the twin expert-only plunges called Castor and Pollux.

Once you get to the very top after two lifts, you have three choices: a warmup run back to the base down the same face you just rode above, beginning with an invitingly mild slope called Bambi; a curvaceous glide around the corner to the intermediate playgrounds of the Kachina bowl; or a heart-thumping hike up to the Highline or West Basin ridges, from which snow-filled expert chutes cascade down into the main ski areas.

It had been an uncharacteristically low snowfall season thus far. Both Susan and I are advanced-level skiers, but neither of us had skied much in the short season before this trip, so we opted for Kachina’s mild-mannered, sun-filled descents.

After we had carved our way past the ever-present ski classes along the easiest route, Honeysuckle, and through the swoops and crests of intermediate lanes like Shalako and Lone Star, we almost felt we were on as gentle a big mountain as Snowmass in Colorado or Deer Valley in Utah, minus all the people. But then we detoured to tough, short pistes like Psychopath and Inferno, and the comparisons vanished. Taos terrain is most memorable for its bumps and steeps, so if you scare easily, it’s best to tackle the tough stuff with an instructor.

For many people, the major decision each day is not where to ski but where to eat lunch. In the early 1960s, Taos, following European tradition, closed its lifts while everyone skied home to their lodges for a filling midday meal. The lifts no longer stop, alas. (The last time was in 1989, when, at the stroke of 12:30, every lift in New Mexico stopped for a one-minute tribute to Ernie Blake, who had died a few days before.) The St. Bernard takes care of its hungry guests in the main dining room or on its outside deck. Deck lunches feature delicious cheeseburgers grilled outdoors. In the main dining room, Jean Mayer, the genial owner who is also the ski school’s technical director, presides each night over marvelous family-style French dinners.

An impressive new addition is the Bavarian Lodge and Restaurant, just below the Kachina lift, where you can dine on sauerbraten and Sacher torte under the massive beams and painted ceiling panels of a huge log cabin built in Old World style.

Susan said that the Bavarian’s food was so tasty we needed to return later in the week for dinner, which we did. The food--goulash soup, Wiener schnitzel, apple strudel--was ample and tasty.

By our third ski day we had explored much of the mountain that was reachable by lifts, including fabulous hidden byways such as Hunziker Bowl, an advanced area of rolling bumps tucked past a line of trees under Kachina peak. Like many New Mexico ski resorts, Taos attracts a great many guests from neighboring Texas. We became acquainted with Nancy and Tom, a fun-loving pair of Dallas residents, whom we took to chasing down the long cruise called Maxie’s under the No. 7 lift. One afternoon, Tom confided he had buried a bottle of champagne in a secret spot, which he and Nancy planned to visit just before the last run of the day. Would I care to join them?

The last rays of sunlight were disappearing behind the peaks when Tom, Nancy and I boarded the nearly empty lift to the stash. The bottle of Napa Chandon and a few glasses were nestled in the snow near a ski patrol shack and picnic table. With the deftness of a sommelier, Tom popped the cork, filled each of our glasses and set his remote-controlled camera atop his ski poles. Grinning, we toasted our new friendship at 10,000 feet. Then, still grinning (a small glass is good for a lot of giggles at that altitude), we carefully carved our way home to our lodging.

I asked Tom why Taos is so deserving of a champagne toast. He said he had saved so much money by not flying to Europe to ski that he could “splurge a bit on the bubbly.” Taos “is as European as you are going to get in New Mexico!” he said.

Actually, Europeans have made Taos a destination for years, and not just for the quality of the skiing. This is the place D.H. Lawrence called “one of the chosen spots on Earth,” the town to which painters including Nicolai Fechin, Ernest L. Blumenschein and others gravitated, the community of writers, artists and intellectuals formed by American heiress Mabel Dodge Luhan. If you can force yourself to leave the slopes early or if you don’t mind driving to them daily, you can spend as much time soaking up cultural rays as solar ones in the village of Taos.

The residence of the Russian-born Fechin has been transformed into a museum; behind it, the Fechin Inn, opened in 1996, now provides first-class hotel service. Luhan’s home, a handsome, rambling adobe with a new wing of rooms, is now an inn and conference center called the Mabel Dodge Luhan House. Non-guests are welcome to tour its public rooms. The work of Blumenschein, an American, and others who formed the Taos Society of Artists in the early years of this century is on display in an adobe estate at the Van Vechten-Lineberry Taos Art Museum.

On my own arts tour, the first stop after Taos Pueblo itself would be the Millicent Rogers Museum, a small repository for some of the best Hispanic, Native American and contemporary northern New Mexican arts, crafts and jewelry.

But you can also just wander around the plaza area, down Kit Carson Road and Bent Street or farther afield, and find galleries, bookstores and shops unlike those in any other ski town, American or European. Susan and I did make some forays into town, but don’t be surprised if you find it difficult to leave the ski valley. Each winter, it’s filled with skiers who return year after year because they fall in love with one of the lodges, or they grow ecstatic from the exhaustion that comes with skiing a mountain on which 51% of the runs are rated advanced.

The Blake family intends to keep Taos just modern enough. “We’re not reporting to shareholders,” Mickey Blake, 55, Ernie’s son and successor, noted last winter. “And we like our niche. We want to stay as close as we can to my father’s vision of being as Alpine an experience as possible.”

To which I lift my jigger of schnapps and say “Salud!” And pass the salsa, please.

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TAOS

Lift ticket prices: Adult all-day, $44; adult half-day, $32

Lifts: Four quads, one triple, five doubles, two surface lifts.

Internet: https://www.skitaos.org

Snow conditions: (505) 776-2916

GUIDEBOOK

Top of the Line at Taos

Getting there: United connects from L.A. to Santa Fe, the nearest airport, about 60 miles from Taos. Round trips begin at $258.

Where to stay: For convenience, nothing beats the Inn at Snakedance, telephone (800) 322-9815, next to the slopes. For luxury, look into the suites at the Bavarian, tel. (505) 770- 0450, a short drive up the mountain from the base area. For tradition, you can try to get into the St. Bernard, tel. (505) 776-2251; the Edelweiss, tel. (800) I LUV SKI; or the Thunderbird, tel. (800) 776- 2279. For a condo, try the Powderhorn, tel. (800) 776-2346; Sierra del Sol, tel. (800) 523-3954; or Kandahar, tel. (800) 756- 2226, among others. In Taos itself, I’d choose the Fechin Inn, tel. (800) 811-2933, or the luxurious bed-and-breakfast Casa de las Chimineas, tel. (877) 758-4777. A list of selected B&Bs; can be found at https:// www.virtualcities.com/ons/ nm/nmonsdex.htm or https:// www.taos-bandb-inns.com. For toll-free B&B; reservation services call (800) 876-7857 or (800) 939-2215. For hostels, there’s the Abominable Snowmansion in Arroyo Seco (between town and the ski valley), tel. (505) 776-8298, where dorm rates begin at $18. A vacation guide is available online at https://taosguide.com, with links to most lodges, hotels and B&Bs.;

Where to eat: For Ski Valley atmosphere: the St. Bernard or the Thunderbird. If you are not staying at the hotel, call early to make a reservation or show up and hope for a cancellation. Great meals in town: Joseph’s Table, 4167 Paseo del Pueblo Sur, tel. (505) 751-4512; the Apple Tree, 123 Bent St., tel. (505) 758-1900; Roberto’s (classic northern New Mexican), Kit Carson Road, tel. (505) 758- 2434. For a comprehensive restaurant list also visit https://taos webb.com/menu/location.html.