TAOS New Mexico....BETA.....?

[hoarhey]

Wasn't too bad last Tuesday and Wednesday, although many more showed up on Wednesday

We had a great 2 days there

It was good to be back, as I hadn't been in 22 yrs (1995)

Hope the snowfall shows up for you guys

We'll be back as my inlaws are in Santa Fe

I'm looking forward to exploring and getting to know Taos again in the coming years

[thewestisthefuture]

Anybody post this yet?

Taosavalanchecenter.org

[Benny Profane]

closest to east coast terrain that i've ridden out west. tight, steep, killer! i had moved from JH which was a GS ski hill (dating myself ) and tsv was a SL hill. the place is great...enjoy! hope it snows...a lot!

I got n the lift last year on a nice day well after the last snow with this guy who was wearing a pair of new race slalom Volkls, which you rarely see in the west on the rec side. He said the same, that Taos is tight and fast. I understood, after a few days.

[DARvidBlaineMAGICK]

Reports are coming in hot. Apparently that 18" came in wet and heavy. Gates dropping all over the hill. Highline open to Juarez, Reforma / Blitz, most lower frontside steeps open as well.

Orale, bro.

Orale bro haha small world

[Bottleman]

I got n the lift last year on a nice day well after the last snow with this guy who was wearing a pair of new race slalom Volkls, which you rarely see in the west on the rec side. He said the same, that Taos is tight and fast. I understood, after a few days.

Thanks for the intel!

[jackstraw]

Alain's a maggot?

Yeah, what? ...best fucking skier on the mtn!

My wife used to take care of their daughter occasionally at kindercare. She had fire in her eyes (in a good way!) as a little kid. She must be mid to late 20's by now.

[Shredhead]

Yeah, what? ...best fucking skier on the mtn!.

I shared an Astar with him, his wife and a wealthy client in AK. Theo would let Alain and I rip huge lines, so we could lap the other groups, while he brought down the others.
At first, I wanted to hate him because we was so good, good looking and French.
But he's such a nice guy, you just couldn't.

[Buster Highmen]

I shared an Astar with him, his wife and a wealthy client in AK. Theo would let Alain and I rip huge lines, so we could lap the other groups, while he brought down the others.
At first, I wanted to hate him because we was so good, good looking and French.
But he's such a nice guy, you just couldn't.

In his shop @Taos, above the partition between the entry room and the inner room on the left, he has a pair of Dynamic VR70s mounted. Those skis had a cracked metal sidewall, weighed about 20 pounds each and were awesome smooth at speed. A friend of mine back in the early 70s had a pair and I've never seen another pair since. Alain was pretty excited I knew what they were.

[hoarhey]

Cool stories
Great vibe at Taos

They finally got some more snow, 13" in the last 24

[Nevada29er]

Taos was ripping this weekend. Blue bird skies and plenty of wintry chalk, despite the balmy temps. Coverage is really good despite a lack of recent snow. Katchina is on reduced loading (every other chair) snow preservation mode. West Basin is mostly in.

However, If I may be so bold, now that the Blake is done, maybe time to mix in a little AC pavement in the parking lots. I love mud pit parking as much as the next guy, but if you're trying to attract wealthy out of towners to boost the tax revenue, they might appreciate a few less potholes and a little AC here and there. Just a crazy thought.

Or, if you're going to keep the mud parking, at least offer après female mud wrestling.

[SirHeady]

Thread needs less skiing , more weird shit.

Parents used to live on the Navajo res in N.Arizona/New Mexico in the 70s/80s.

Grew up hearing tons of weird stories about the area that still captivate me to this day.

Last time I was in the area was Philmont for Scouts almost 15 years ago. That place is epic and weird, google Urraca mesa regarding the totems, dimensional portals, and immortal Anasazi shamans living up there.

Parents told me a bunch of stories about weird shit that goes on around there.... my mom and her girlfriends from NYC were joyriding around the mesas outside of Taos and ran into a group of SkinWalkers (navajo i think ) fully painted doing rituals and tried to abduct them.

Heard multiple UFO stories from my dad of seeing giant silent crafts spinning in the desert like 10ft off the ground

Mom worked at the church in Taos that has the radioactive/glow in the dark painting of Jesus from the early 1500s.

So much heady shit up there, would love to spend a few weeks driving around and checking out anasazi ruins and all the eccentricities of the lands.

One of the best TGR threads I've ever read

[Nevada29er]

We've been going to Taos for years, and unfortunately I've never witnessed any UFOs, aliens, or any truly weird shit, although I've read some of the stories on this thread.

I will say that the people who work at TSV are far and away the nicest people you will ever meet at a ski area. The lifties are dancing, having a great time, people chat you up on the chairs, just a great vibe.

[ill-advised strategy]

I think all the cattle mutilations have to do with Sandia and Los Alamos....
I think they accidentally release something: radiation, chemicals, gas cloud...you name it...and then they cut some organs out of a local cow to find out if they did any damage to the local people.
That's my hypothesis anyway, who knows.

[Tomcat51]

The "Taos Hum" drives some people crazy, but I've never been able to hear it.

[skinipenem]

So much crazy shit goes down at the labs that very few people will ever know about. I heard a sorry about the last big forest fire that resulted in evacuating los alamos. Supposedly, a research scientist had to go back in to retrieve amsime radioactive material from his garage. Everyone's gotta have a hobby.

[QUOTE=SirHeady;4933204]Thread needs less skiing , more weird shit.

[Shredhead]

I know a bunch of kids, that grew up at the lab, that turned in to rippers.

[skinipenem]

[QUOTE=Shredhead;4934301]I know a bunch of kids, that grew up at the lab, that turned in to rippers.[/QUOTE

Yeah because their parents throw them out of the house if they aren't 98% or better at everything they do.

[smallies]

Here's some weird stuff for y'all.
http://www.lucypringle.co.uk/photos/2001/aug.shtml

[Nevada29er]

Local kids are rippers cause the public schools bus them to the resort to ski every Fri.

I wish I had that for PE class.

[ill-advised strategy]

I worked with a series of guys who sort of passed along a rental out in the desert near TP. There was a tame coyote who came with the house and was really friendly...like indoor friendly....but wouldn't leave with you if you wanted to take him, or would just return home if you brought him somewhere. So he just came with the house when the next guy rented it. He was self sufficient without being fed...I'm sure he found rabbits and mice and roadkill and stuff to eat; but he was a nice little guy and would hang out with people like any other pet dog when people were around.

I also had a coyote mix. She was fast and smart...one day I was driving down the canyon into town and "pet of the week" was on KTAO. They said "this looks like a dog that could help out on the ranch, a heeler chow mix, she just came in here and laid down in the corner even though there's all kinds of people coming and going"...and I thought: a cattle dog who has a calm demeanor...that sounds like a good dog. So I drove directly to KTAO and got her. When we got home to the ski valley, I let her out to do the business that night and she was gone. So, it's the ski valley, I figured she'd make her way home eventually or turn up in the village somewhere, the next day I'm looking around and I stop to talk to the gals at the post office. We're talking about the dog and they're like "oh yeah, we know her, everybody knows her, she's the local dog". Apparently Suzanne Mayer used to live behind the St. B in a van, and she had a few dogs, and this dog in particular would just roam the valley with the Stagg's dog. So, of all the places in Taos county and all the people in Taos county, I had ended up with this ski valley dog when Suzanne went to jail for some reason. I went over behind the St. Bernard and there she was...she'd just gone home. I don't remember when it was that I started realizing this was likely a coyote mix, probably when she started howling back at the coyotes and I took another close look at her and thought "oh, this is a coyote mix from the mesa". Eventually we worked it all out, and Suzanne visited a few times, and we moved around the county and then to Utah.
She was up on Kachina peak with my roommate Ed in the post season and saw some rabbit or something and hauled ass right off the huge cliff area down toward Williams Lake. Ed was all upset, sure she was dead or gone or whatever. She met him at the porch of our house. Apparently she billygoated down and just made her way home.

[eskido]

Good story, very Taos

[Meadow Skipper]

That (good) story made me think about some of the Taoseños/Taoseñas I know, and some stories like my one about the clinic owner's ex-wife that I can't really write down for the innerwebz, but hey, the touring up around Williams Lake is pretty good.

[SILENCER]

To NM specific/weird shit...

I have never really payed attention when visiting, but how is Taos in town for ditch quantity/quality? Was curious if the Taos hum keeps La Llorona away, or if there aren't that many ditches to begin with. My home town (3.5 hours south) was spider webbed with irrigation ditches, and La Llorona RULED that fuckin' roost!

[ill-advised strategy]

When I first moved to Taos I rented a room in this local guy's house. He was a pretty normal, pretty low-key quiet gay hairdresser....but his family in town were vatos. So his brother would come over drunk when he needed to get away from the cops or somebody was chasing him.
It was chaos at that place, and the racism (toward me) of this dude's family houseguests was palpable, so once I was in the ski valley for a few months and knew some skiers I found myself another living situation and jetted.

The next fall I was on my way back from a fire season out of town so I got a hold of this guy over the phone to see if I could rent a room for a month again just to simplify things and not have to camp out in November cold when I got into Taos. Sure he says, but this time it was a little studio apartment on the side of the house, and the nice gay hairdresser landlord had moved to another house in town and rented the other place to hispano gangsters from Denver. I found all this out when I got into town. So whatever, no big deal, I just keep to myself.
This was a one room deal, like a small hotel room, so the bed was right near the front door. One night at probably 2am or so, the door just explodes open and shouting and guns pointed at me, like right in my face, super bright lights right in my face. LET ME SEE YOUR HANDS, DON'T MOVE etc etc. I'm half awake...
WHERE'S MIGUEL? WHERE'S FUCKING MIGUEL? I'm like I don't know, I'm the only one who lives here, I just moved in a week ago. Please go through my apartment, it's all good, look through my car, it's all good. Let me put some coffee on for you guys....I'm just a skier, I fight fire in Oregon in the summer...yeah yeah, those guys next door are loco...I don't even know those guys.

We sort it all out, they're looking for my neighbor because he stabbed a guy. The next day there's blood all over the next porch and skid marks in the gravel driveway and shit.

That whole residence was a converted double wide with paper walls. I spent a lot of time hoping there would never be bullets ripping through....or that the cops wouldn't think I was into whatever my neighbors were into....or that my neighbors wouldn't think I was a problem and try to take me out. It was a long month before I moved into a place in the ski valley with a bunch of skiers for the winter. holy shit.

[ill-advised strategy]

During that first week of arriving to Taos, one of my best friends from my Michigan hometown who was in the Air Force in Albuquerque came up to hang out and help me look for a place to live. We camped for a night in Hondo canyon, then stayed at the snowmansion and we'd kind of split up looking around town at ads on the corkboards at the laundrymat or the grocery store or restaurants and whatnot. making calls from payphones. Ah, the pre cell phone, pre internet days.

So buddy Steve is taking phone numbers from ads at the grocery store and this old lady asks if he's looking for a place to stay...why yes, he is...he's helping his friend find a place. She says we can stay at her place while we look if we give her a ride back to her place. Great! Score!

So we end up back at this lady's house in Valdez. It's all dark and creepy in there, she's talking nonstop bullshit about energy and crystals and the great spirit and who knows what, but we're indoors with a free place to stay, so whatever right. The next day we split up again, I go looking for jobs and housing, Steve had agreed to give this lady a ride around to do some errands. Later we meet up and Steve is just like "I'm going back to Albuquerque, this place is fucked up, this lady is fucked up...I feel like she's going to kill me in my sleep or something". So he takes off, and I take his advice and bug out to the snowmansion.

Years later, my buddies from the fire crew end up renting that exact house in Valdez. When he's moving in, he finds this creepy huge journal/photo album in the corner of this tool shed behind the main house. Each day there's just a poorly written scrawl of this man's horror life. Like "I WANT TO GET OUT OF THE SHACK AND GO TO TOWN BUT SHE WON'T LET ME." And each day there was a terrifying polaroid selfie and the entry would be signed Frank Banks.

To the best we could tell, this woman had a retarded man living in her tool shed who was more or less a captive.

It was so horrifying you just had to laugh, kinda....like, there's nothing you could do about it in retrospect, and we're a bunch of sick fire crew ski bum assholes basically, so all that season it was a running joke "I need to take a leak and Justin won't let me out of the truck- Frank Banks". or "My sandwich tastes like dog shit. -Frank Banks". "I've been out of clean underwear for a month -Frank Banks".

fucking Frank Banks.....fucking creepy lady....fucking Taos man.