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Report - Taos Women's Ski Week 2019

Gidget415

Certified Ski Diva
I'm doing Taos Women's Ski Week this week with my younger sister. Because the weekend was pretty booked near the ski valley by the time I started planning, we stayed Sat/Sun nights at the El Pueblo in Taos. It was very clean, quiet and affordable. It's on the Ski Valley side of the Plaza area, so the traffic in the morning isn't bad. I will definitely consider staying there again and it gave me another option up here at a great price.

My sister and I moved up to the Alpine Village Suites in the ski valley on Monday evening. You can't beat waking up and being steps from the lift. The staff is great and the place is very clean. Our condo comes with a ski locker in the first floor area (there is a lower entrance/exit from the locker area to the decks near the Boot Doctor store). There is a nice sauna, hot tub and a massage room. Our kitchenette has everything we need to make simple dinners, etc.

We didn't have a ski-off for Women's Week like they do for regular Ski Week. I was in a black/blue group with Karen, which then disbanded because two people wanted to hike the ridge, one person wanted to move down, and the group wasn't big enough to proceed. Now I'm in a blue/black group with Sandy. The week's supervisor (Kyle) told us that Taos Ski School is moving away from the 1-10 scale they formerly used to rate skiers. I am the second youngest in the group (at 45) and the only non-Taos resident. Many ladies in the Women's Week are retired women who have moved here permanently, which is good networking for them. They all have amazing career/life stories. I can completely understand this demographic, as I have not been able to take time like this from work and kids in the past and only my career transition this year (plus amazing supportive partner at home) made this possible for me. With that said, there are some Taos employees and women of various ages/hometowns in the group as well. I haven't noticed many ski club members from out of town in Women's Week, which we saw a lot of in my January Ski Week.

We have some mixed abilities in the group. Everyone is progressing, but I recall last Ski Week really pushed us and built on different skills every day. We have been doing slip/pivot turns (which my group did last time), working on side-slipping/smearing turns inside the bumps, and stance/form essentials for bumps. We have done some trees, Moe's black bumps and Streetcar black bumps. We have one person in our group who is opting out of harder terrain toward the end of each lesson, so the group overall isn't pushing much. The video analysis was very interesting today.

My sister is in what may be termed an 8/9 group in the old system. She has done Kachina/ Main Street twice this week and has been doing some interesting drills and steep trees. She is learning a ton and is very happy with her group and instructor. They seem to do some of the same drills/lessons we do, but on harder terrain. She has been using the opportunity to get free demos throughout the week and has enjoyed that perk. We also found out that her ski week was free because I have a season pass now and it's buy one/get one with the pass! She has the Ikon pass and was able to use that for 5 of the 6 days.

Conditions have been good. We had 4-7 inches of powder on Monday and it was fun getting into some trees and deeper areas here and there. Our lessons happened while it was still snowing but there was decent visibility where our instructor took us and it was a fun day. We are expecting more snow starting tonight and continuing into next week.

We had a Women's Tech Talk Sunday evening, given by Kyle. We learned that she and her husband were the original owners of the Boot Doctors here and that they just sold it to Christie's Sports last year. Her husband still works there, I think. @marzNC, @alison wong, that could explain her comments re: boots last Ski Week! She gave us some interesting information about women's-specific equipment, stance, boots, etc.

Regular Tech Talk Tuesday night at the St. Bernard was very fun and interesting. Doug showed us a lot of video (epic crashes then a frame-by-frame analysis), walked us through some mogul pointers and introduced us to Debbie Armstrong, 1984 Olympic Gold medalist who is here doing PSIA training for instructors. She was a Taos instructor for years. She was one of the first to try the modern style of carving, rolling on the edges with a still upper body, in her gold medal race. She still works on her skiing and tries to get better, which somehow reassured me since I've been frustrated with myself this week. It was a good reminder that we can all improve and that this can be a sport of continual refinement, which can keep it interesting. Right?

We had dinner Tuesday at the St. Bernard (if they are booked up, just hang around the bar area at 6:30 and ask if anyone didn't show up). Sometimes you can get a last minute reservation that way, which we did. We were seated with two guys who had the same thought. It was a lovely price fixed meal, continental style, and a pretty good deal given it was 5 courses of wonderful food.

Overall, I think Women's Week is a good thing but I felt like I made a lot more progress last time because my group really worked hard and everyone was willing to try new things. This has been good reinforcement and it's always good to get more miles in.

I'm coming back for another week from March 9-15 with my family and am considering doing another Ski Week. I think I'll put the kids in the older kid version of Ski Week, as they can both use it to get more skill reinforcement. My boyfriend can jump off of whatever cornices he wants while we are in lessons. Ha ha. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but you can't beat the deal for six days of continuous training and I am so determined to improve this year!
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
We didn't have a ski-off for Women's Week like they do for regular Ski Week. I was in a black/blue group with Karen, which then disbanded because two people wanted to hike the ridge, one person wanted to move down, and the group wasn't big enough to proceed. Now I'm in a blue/black group with Sandy. The week's supervisor (Kyle) told us that Taos Ski School is moving away from the 1-10 scale they formerly used to rate skiers.
Makes sense to get away from a rating scale that no other ski school uses. But the transition will take a while.

The lesson groups are meeting up at the base in the morning, correct? That's what happened last year.

We had a Women's Tech Talk Sunday evening, given by Kyle. We learned that she and her husband were the original owners of the Boot Doctors here and that they just sold it to Christie's Sports last year. Her husband still works there, I think. @marzNC, @alison wong, that could explain her comments re: boots last Ski Week! She gave us some interesting information about women's-specific equipment, stance, boots, etc.
Interesting. Last year there was a tech talk early one morning, meaning starting at 8:30. The agreement with Christie's was still very new.

There were quite a few intermediates from a midwest ski club last year. They had plenty of questions so it was a good session.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
We had dinner Tuesday at the St. Bernard (if they are booked up, just hang around the bar area at 6:30 and ask if anyone didn't show up). Sometimes you can get a last minute reservation that way, which we did. We were seated with two guys who had the same thought. It was a lovely price fixed meal, continental style, and a pretty good deal given it was 5 courses of wonderful food.
Good to know that it's possible to squeeze in a couple people at the last minute. We made reservations a few weeks ahead last year, but it was easy because there was so little snow. I learned that it pays to confirm the reservation in person after getting to TSV. Even after an email confirmation, the reservation was written on the wrong night in the book. Only found out when we went in to ask about adding another person.

Did you see Jean anywhere? I heard he was around last week when friends ate at the St. B.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
No, we did get to meet his brother, Dadou.
They look a lot alike. I saw that Dadou was the instructor for the top group for MLK Week. At first, I think he was Jean because I didn't know that Jean wasn't skiing this season recuperating from hip surgery.

We were served by Jean last year. It was a fun evening.
Taos Misc Mayer Feb2018.jpg
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Nope, we are meeting at the Whistle Stop like they do in regular ski week.
Interesting. Any feel for how many women are participating? More than 4 groups? Last year was far from normal because there was essentially no black terrain open.
 

alison wong

Angel Diva
@marzNC, @alison wong, that could explain her comments re: boots last Ski Week!
Yep. I put the 2 and 2 together after @Susan L mentioned it.
Speaking of my boots, I did bring them to my boot fitter yesterday. He will make more adjustment, adding 1 more degree on each side (total 2 degrees) because I am "A" framed. The adjustment will be at no cost.

I was contemplating about Women's ski week next year. But after reading your TR this week, I guess I will stick with the regular ski week.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I was contemplating about Women's ski week next year. But after reading your TR this week, I guess I will stick with the regular ski week.
Only reason that @santacruz skier and I did the Women's Ski Week last year was for the 5 days of demo skis. We didn't even know that was the week until the ski school desk person mentioned it. I think the flexibility of picking any week is better than feeling restricted to the week that TSV picks for the Women's Ski Week. Assuming a women doesn't mind having a male instructor. There are certainly plenty of female instructors during regular Ski Weeks in any case.

I talked to more than one person at TSV who thought that the Ski Week lessons were only for that particular week. Mostly at the Whistlestop. Meaning they were quite surprised when I let them know that the Taos Ski Week lesson program happens pretty much every week of the season.
 

santacruz skier

Angel Diva
We had a great Ski Week and our group was quite compatible in terms of skill/ability. However, it was a low snow year and may have been a different situation if more of the mountain was open. The free demo was the clincher - why not do it?
 

Yamaste

Certified Ski Diva
Wow! Three weeks is amazing! Especially getting to ski with your sister. I'm so glad to hear you'll be putting those beautiful new Stocklis to work :smile: Next time I'm in Taos, you'll have already learned the whole mountain.
 

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