Colorado-New Mexico Ski Trip - January 22-29, 2008

These pictures were taken with my Fujifilm Finepix S9000 digital camera and Cathy's Canon PowerShot A540 digital camera on a ski trip to Colorado and New Mexico at the end of January, 2008. Along for the trip: Amitha, Brent, and Tom.

Images on the pages linked below are shown at a resolution of 640x480, but many are available in full size or cropped from the originals or in half of original size by clicking on the links after the captions.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

My part of the trip was supposed to begin on Monday night, but flight delays kept me home until Tuesday morning. All went reasonably smoothly, despite some delays caused by snow in Cincinnati. I arrived in Albuquerque just in time for lunch with the Zoltan group. After that, there was time to check in and relax some, then back out to get dinner (Rudy's!) before calling it a night early (after a 20+ hour day that started at 3 AM EST/1 AM MST back home). [2 Pictures]. Amitha was supposed to arrive, but flight delays got him too and he'll try again Wednesday.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The day to gather everyone up. After a slow morning getting some work done at the motel in Albuquerque, it was off to the airport to get Brent and Tom. Amitha was not going to arrive for a while, so we got lunch and walked around some on the volcanoes in Petroglyph National Monument [26 Pictures]. After we got Amitha, it was on up to Pagosa Springs for the night.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

The first ski day. The predicted snow started earlier than predicted, so we had a snowy morning in Pagosa Springs [5 Pictures] and a slow ride up into Wolf Creek Pass [17 Pictures]. We got to Wolf Creek around 10 [4 Pictures] [5 More Pictures]. It snowed most of the day and we had a lot of great runs all over the mountain [19 Pictures]. We called it quits around 3:30 [2 Pictures] to make sure we could get back down to Pagosa Springs before dark [8 Pictures].

Friday, January 25, 2008

Wolf Creek Day 2. We started with some fresh snow in Pagosa Springs [2 Pictures] and an easier ride up the pass [3 Pictures]. The storm didn't let up much, and there were several inches of snow in the morning and more all day. Another outstanding day [27 Pictures]. On the way down at the end of the day, we quickly drove out of the snow and had some great views of the valley [5 Pictures] and back into Pagosa Springs [2 Pictures].

Saturday, January 26, 2008

No skiing, just a travel and rest day. We left Pagosa Springs mid-morning [7 Pictures] and headed toward New Mexico. At Chama [2 Pictures], and up Route 17 for a very scenic ride across the San Juan Mountains [44 Pictures]. We made a stop for a quick and small lunch in Antonito [11 Pictures] before reentering New Mexico. From there, it was south along US 285 and east along US 64 [10 Pictures] to Taos. Just outside Taos, we stopped to see the Rio Grande Gorge bridge [24 Pictures]. After checking in, we later walked around Taos and got a nice dinner at Ronnie Lee's.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Day 1 at Taos Ski Valley. The morning started sunny [Picture] in town, and we were up at the mountain a bit after 9. We had a great day of nice packed powder with plenty of soft bumps to be found [33 Pictures]. It clouded up after lunch but the snow held off until we were getting to the parking lot at the end of the day.

Monday, January 28, 2008

This was supposed to be Taos Ski Valley, Day 2. We got up to a slushy morning in Taos [Picture], checked out, and headed up to the mountain. We were there when the lift were supposed to start running, but they never did. Too much avalanche danger from the foot of fresh snow and too windy to run the lifts safely [9 Pictures]. The highlight of the morning came in the base lodge when a teacher from Taos High School whistled to get everyone's attention to announce that the high school group was to return their skis to go back to school. This announcement was greeted by boos from everyone in the lodge. We drove back down the mountain, through the storm right out into milder weather and some sun in the Taos basin [8 Pictures]. The ride back to Albuquerque was no trouble [6 Pictures]. The only pictures from later were of the sunset on the Sandia crest from the motel [6 Pictures].

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

After an overnight snow squall, Albuquerque roads were very slick in the morning. We were just in time for my early flight and in plenty of time for the others.

E-mail domain: teresco.org, username: terescoj - Mon Jan 28 21:43:53 MST 2008