As a graduate student in eastern New Mexico, I don't get to do the amount of skiing I once did with the life of a mountain dweller (only for a season, but damn I miss it) and serious slacker when it came to my undergrad career (I was skiing before class, after class, skipping class...), so when I got the chance to go skiing for my Fall Break, I took it immediately, knowing the next time I'd get to ski is in mid-December when I'm home for Christmas.
Last Thursday evening, I packed up my little Corolla and said goodbye to Portales, NM, listening to my mp3 player at an obnoxious level, driving as quickly as I thought I could get away with. It's about 8.5 hours from my house to Wolf Creek, so my I met my friend in Albuquerque and spent the night, which splits the trip in half nicely. After stocking up on picnic snacks, drinks, we were on our way. We stopped at Abiquiu Lake, which is a 4,000 acre lake off the Chama River, in New Mexico. It was a beautiful spot and the pinic lunch was fantastic.
Finally we crossed the border into Colorado, and this photo marks that celebration.
We reached Pagosa Springs just a little before dark, ready for dinner. We stayed at The Springs, which has something like 20 natural hot spring hot tubs you can access (this was MUCH needed after skiing - I haven't been so sore in a while). After unpacking, we at at Alley House, which I highly recommend. The service was awesome - everyone was friendly and the food wasn't half bad either. Most everything was within walking distance and the city has a great sleepy mountain town atmosphere, although one can tell it's been hard these days by the economy.
I was ready to pass out and get up early after a healthy dose of 107 degree water and dinner - determined to make it for first chair.
We dropped into Bow & Ski first thing, as we spied it on the way in. The guys were awesome and incredibly helpful - they scraped and buffed out my skis, as the wax job was done the night before. If you stay in Pagosa Springs and ever need anything ski related, these guys have it covered and they even let me take my skis in the back and set my boots/bindings up because they weren't certified to check Rossy bindings.
The base at Wolf Creek is 10,300ft with the hikeable peak at 11,904ft. The area made me nostalgic for June, Mammoth's sister mountain. It has a small resort atmosphere with big mountain promise.
We took a warm up lap or two, and I realized I will probably stay true to my Rossy BC's for a long time to come and I'm glad I didn't wind up selling them two seasons ago. Rossignol just knows how to make a bitching all mountain ski that is nimble to maneuver in tight situations and fat enough to blast through deep snow and is just plain fun. The next run we took was down the face, the snow was incredible. This photo is from much later in the day, but as you can see, it was incredible for mid-October.
View attachment 373643
We were hyped on the conditions and Alberta Peak was open so we scrambled on down to the car to grab the provisions for lunch and were off again.
Last Thursday evening, I packed up my little Corolla and said goodbye to Portales, NM, listening to my mp3 player at an obnoxious level, driving as quickly as I thought I could get away with. It's about 8.5 hours from my house to Wolf Creek, so my I met my friend in Albuquerque and spent the night, which splits the trip in half nicely. After stocking up on picnic snacks, drinks, we were on our way. We stopped at Abiquiu Lake, which is a 4,000 acre lake off the Chama River, in New Mexico. It was a beautiful spot and the pinic lunch was fantastic.
Finally we crossed the border into Colorado, and this photo marks that celebration.
We reached Pagosa Springs just a little before dark, ready for dinner. We stayed at The Springs, which has something like 20 natural hot spring hot tubs you can access (this was MUCH needed after skiing - I haven't been so sore in a while). After unpacking, we at at Alley House, which I highly recommend. The service was awesome - everyone was friendly and the food wasn't half bad either. Most everything was within walking distance and the city has a great sleepy mountain town atmosphere, although one can tell it's been hard these days by the economy.
I was ready to pass out and get up early after a healthy dose of 107 degree water and dinner - determined to make it for first chair.
We dropped into Bow & Ski first thing, as we spied it on the way in. The guys were awesome and incredibly helpful - they scraped and buffed out my skis, as the wax job was done the night before. If you stay in Pagosa Springs and ever need anything ski related, these guys have it covered and they even let me take my skis in the back and set my boots/bindings up because they weren't certified to check Rossy bindings.
The base at Wolf Creek is 10,300ft with the hikeable peak at 11,904ft. The area made me nostalgic for June, Mammoth's sister mountain. It has a small resort atmosphere with big mountain promise.
We took a warm up lap or two, and I realized I will probably stay true to my Rossy BC's for a long time to come and I'm glad I didn't wind up selling them two seasons ago. Rossignol just knows how to make a bitching all mountain ski that is nimble to maneuver in tight situations and fat enough to blast through deep snow and is just plain fun. The next run we took was down the face, the snow was incredible. This photo is from much later in the day, but as you can see, it was incredible for mid-October.
View attachment 373643
We were hyped on the conditions and Alberta Peak was open so we scrambled on down to the car to grab the provisions for lunch and were off again.
