DAY 1 - Saturday of MLK Weekend
Drove up to Taos Ski Valley (TSV) early. Wanted to get good parking on this Saturday of MLK weekend. Parked in Bear right at the entrance to Buffalo. Now there are numbers on the signs for the different parking lot sections. But the process for getting the open shuttle to stop is the same . . . you yell “Whoa” and may need help from others to make enough noice for the driver to hear. The overflow lot (Deer) was needed.
A few changes in the village make a difference for travelers and day trippers who aren’t staying walk in/walk out. The most significant is the renovation of the public locker and the expansion of the private locker rooms.
The Season Pass office, which also handles MCP and Ikon, moved to to Taos Tent. Plenty of signs directing MCP/Ikon holders to the correct door as you walk in from the shuttle stop. Have to do separate waivers (multiple touch screen computers set up) for MCP and Ikon for some reason. The default for Ikon is 5 days, even if someone has Full Ikon. Have to go back to get the last 2 days activated. The MCP works the same ways as before. After the free days, must get a day ticket every day. Can get it the afternoon before after 3pm or so. The office closes at 4pm. The Ski School registration desk has moved into the building right next to the base of Lift 1. (Used to be next to the day ticket windows).
Figured out that the best way to get to the locker room is to go around the backside of the building instead of up the stairs.
The locker room looks completely new. No more old-style basket room. There are electronic day lockers for $10 or $15. There is a desk with a staff member handling payments for those lockers. Still okay to leave boot bags under the benches, which is what we did. The layout of the locker room is not very effective, with too much open space and not enough bench space. Hopefully will get adjusted at some point. The restrooms were completely renovated.
Skied with
@diymom off Lift 8 all morning. Very nice snow conditions with almost all soft snow. Bumps are smaller than a couple years ago in early Feb when there was 100+ inches, but definitely are building. Wasn’t too much point to ride Lift 2 to go over to Lift 7 because the lines got pretty long on Lift 2 after 10:30. Lift 4 was on delay and didn’t open until early afternoon. Never waited more than a few chairs for Lift 8. All the black terrain on the west side was open.
Met up with
@Susan L and her DH for lunch. They were very surprised at the long lift lines in the morning. Hadn’t ever seen that before since they moved to NM several years ago. We skied over to Lift 4 together after lunch. DH and I went down Lonestar, a blue bump run. Nice soft bumps that could be called medium-size in many places. But small for TSV.
When we got to the top of Lift 4, it was easy to spot the avalanche debris field. Or at least what was left. The bottom section had been groomed out. Really long slide. Tragic that there was a fatality.
After diymom went in, I took a couple runs off Lift 1. Took a while to get straight the new layout at the top since Lift 5 is gone and the next lift goes higher than the old Lift 1. So getting to Porcupine (blue) is a little confusing. Porcupine is the run that many Ski Week participants take as a warm up before the ski off at 9:45. That starts at the Whistlestop now.