So how is Taos doing?

[shera]

Considering a road trip next week...

[goldenboy]

Do it for sure- best inbounds day I've had in a long time last weekend.

[shera]

Do it for sure- best inbounds day I've had in a long time last weekend.

Nice. Ty.

[raisingarizona13]

I gotta get there too. I have a friend that works on the hill doing snowmaking and he said it's been good. I have never been but it looks and sounds awesome.

[shera]

Ah, the terrain looks awesome, like CB. I need a day of getting myself into "situations" on the side of a mountain. Trying to figure out where I'll make my next turn.

[hutash]

You might try PMing LeeC, he is a semi local, but isn't on the boards a lot, so may not see this.

[goldenboy]

Ah, the terrain looks awesome, like CB. I need a day of getting myself into "situations" on the side of a mountain. Trying to figure out where I'll make my next turn.

You can definitely do that at Taos. Right now CB is like the grandmaster of chess version of figuring out where the next turn will be, it's so low tide. you need 5 moves planned out in advance. Kind of digging it in a mental puzzle kind of way. At least stuff is open. But Taos, if you haven't been, you need to.

[shera]

I just spent one day there, New Year's. Not everything open. Looked so cool.

Hehe, low tide.

[Hott Butt Mud]

Only been one time. Hiked Kachina Peak with about 4" of smooth fresh. What a sick run!

I too need to go back. Anyone have some pics to post of recent?

[goldenboy]

This was a week ago today. Didn't get a lot of great shots- too busy skiing




More pics, info, and Taos' development plan (new lifts, glading, etc.) HERE, for those interested.

[Lani]

Taos is great but MORE SNOW PLEASE!

[goldenboy]

Taos is great but MORE SNOW PLEASE!

Is 28 in 72 enough for ya?

[concretejungle]

Is 28 in 72 enough for ya?

Same people that measure their yearly average?

[Lani]

BOO FUCKING HOO, I can't go ski it though. Hopefully one of you is up there getting it.

[FiveLarge]

Thanks for the TR!

[BrianH]

Sorry no pretty pictures (too busy skiing to frame them, and besides, this place has tons of great pics anyway), but I wrote this for some of my burningman pals. It's heavy on the philosophy, but I can say -- the tide has turned. If you want some peeps to ski with, ping me! I hooked up with Buster Himen a week ago and he ended up crashing on my fold-out bed.

---------------------------------------

It's officially off the hook in northern NM. Taos reports 28 inches fresh this morning from a system that moved in Tuesday night, and according to some sites, this system could continue through Sunday.

I made it up both Wed. and Thursday and would have been there today, except that my legs are rubbery and I do have some work to do. But Wed. and Thur. were reminders of a big reason why I moved here. Wed. started a little slow, with 8 in. fresh in the morning and lots of graupel, then small needles then finally real flakes. The cloud cover was thin and we could even see blue holes occasionally. Some local told me that nobody was expecting this, which surprised me, because several websites were pretty much spot on. So it was empty up there and all day long, with little effort I could pass through untracked snow most of the day.

This passing through untracked snow ... I'm not the first to remark on its qualities. One of the original existentialists was also a skier and wrote on the topic:

Sliding is appropriation precisely because the synthesis of support realized by the speed is valid only for the slider and during the actual time when he is sliding. The solidity of the snow is effective only for me, is sensible only to me; it is a secret which the snow releases to me alone and which is already no longer true behind my back. Sliding realizes a strictly individual relation with matter, an historical relation; the matter reassembles itself and solidifies in order to hold me up, and it falls back exhausted and scattered behind me. Thus by my passage I have realized that which is unique for me. The ideal for sliding then is a sliding which does not leave any trace. It is sliding on water with a rowboat or motor boat or especially with water skis which, though recently invented, represent from this point of view the ideal limit of aquatic sports. Sliding on snow is already less perfect; there is a trace behind me by which I am compromised, however light it may be. Sliding on ice, which scratches the ice and finds a matter already organized, is very inferior, and if people continue to do it despite all this, it is for other reasons.

Hence that slight disappointment which always seizes us when we see behind us the imprints which our skis have left on the snow. How much better it would be if the snow re-formed itself as we passed over it! Besides when we let ourselves slide down the slope, we are accustomed to the illusion of not making any mark; we ask the snow to behave like that water which secretly it is. Thus the sliding appears as identical with a continuous creation. The speed is comparable to consciousness and here symbolizes consciousness. While it exists, it effects in the material the birth of a deep quality which lives only so long as the speed exists, a sort of reassembling which conquers its indifferent exteriority and which falls back like a blade of grass behind the moving slider.

Being and Nothingness

Who knew Sartre shredded!!!

On Thursday I hooked up with an old climbing buddy of mine and his wife. It was good to connect. Around noon the wind picked up and it was white out conditions and the gusts were buffeting. But the "free refills" from the wind deposition made for an afternoon of fresh freshies, and that is pure magic. After they left I had an hour left, and did a few solo laps. As I started the drive home, I thought of good ol' Jean Paul shredding it up in the alps, and I got a little misty.

Today I work but tomorrow and Sunday, I will once more to feed the rat. We skiers suffer nowhere near as much as climbers, but we still seek out an edge.