TR: Taos opens the ridge

Finally! Today Taos opened the hike-to terrain towards the highline ridge, only a couple of runs but the snow was well worth it.

I skied the past two afternoons with Snowfan (Eric), who unfortunately is on his first ski days after ACL reconstruction so he couldn't go up the ridge. He will have some video of us skiing Al's Run later, which he promised not to put for MA analysis (At least not mine )

Crappy cellphone pictures from the ridge.

Hikers


The West Basin Ridge is still closed


Backside view


Whoohoo! Juarez!


The snow up there was fantastic. So for all of the Taos lovers who couldn't make it up this weekend: Hurry up, it's good up here!

Nice! Thanks for the pics

I'M TRYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See ya soon dude. Glad to see the ridge open..May be the rest of the ridge will be open by the time we get there..What skis were you using?
How are the crowds?

Lee

Crowds are as bad as I've seen them this year. But you know here at Taos when you have to wait 3 minutes on the lift line you call it a very busy day

I was on the Mythics, as dependable as ever.

I am feeling a little green with envy. Still about two weeks before I get there. TAW

Heres Simon,


and me,


Simon, I had a great time trying to keep up with you.

I have a few burred edges but no base damage. (It was a little thin on Spencers, Inferno and Al's.)

I'll post up the mini-vids as soon as I get them uploaded.

It was fun skiing with Simon, he rips. Time to get my hamstring in shape for hiking the ridge.

The snow was thin in spots, but it snowed all day Monday and I skied all day with my nephew. He has skied around 12 days total and by the end of the trip he was moving pretty good.

I got a call from Simon today, he said he was unable to go skiing because his car was snowed in.

What a great problem to have.

It was great skiing with you Eric, too bad we both couldn't make it up the mountain today. Call me when you're back in Taos, the ridge shoould be fully open by then. How do you feel about a hike to the Kachina peak?

Please let me know when you're coming up here. See you in Durango this weekend!

Cool, I've often heard Taos had good terrain, it's good to see some pics.

Simon,

I see you got you some color this year, New Jacket, New hat, new skis..You are scaring me now..Is that so people know who you are coming down Al's

You mean, self arresting down Al's? And it's a spyder jacket, so now more than ever, I'm officially a gaper

Those pics don't really do it justice, I'll try to get some better ones soon.

I hear so much about Al's Run. I mean it's not anything super challenging as it's only a black I would think. And searching pictures on the internet make it look easy. Is it like a less steep and less long Gunbarrel @ Heavenly?

Al's run is 1617' vertical. I have skied Gunbarrel but it was a long time ago and I don't remember how steep or long it is.

Altitude makes alot of difference. Al's is around 10,000 ft.

The challenge for me on Al's is lack of oxygen and spaghetti legs. I have to stop 3 or 4 times.

Looking forward to the day when its covered with 2 feet of fresh and I can float all the way down in one shot. Likewise trying to get my conditioning to the point where I can rip it top to bottom without stopping, I know a girl who can...kind of gives me something to shoot for.

Its steep in places, not so steep in others. Its usually moguled up with pretty big bumps. Part of it is off-camber, makes turning left more work than turning right.

One cool thing about Al's...When you first get to Taos, lower Al's is pretty much all you can see. Causes some folks to turn around and go home!

If you want a LONG bump run at Taos, try Longhorn.

Snowfan got it right, it's not the most difficult run, but it's a landmark. It's like Outhouse at Mary Jane, or The Plunge at Telluride. Everyone recognizes it. On top of that it is under chair 1 which everyone in the mountain has to take to go to the rest of the mountain. It is also extremely intimidating for a beginner or intermediate (been there, skied it for the first time last season).

There are many other more difficult trails than Al's in Taos. As Snowfan said, Longhorn is the perfect example. 2000ft of bumps with no way to bail out, and consistently steeper than Al's.

Simon,

Yes, I'll hike to Kachina next time I ski with you if its open. I want to drop in through the avy chute above Hunzikers....sound good?

A Toas tuning clinic would be nice. I'd attend if I can escape from the jail called work.

Gunbarrel and the Face together is 1700 vertical feet. Gunbarrel has a 35-40 degree headwall. And as you said about Taos, all you can see at the California base is Gunbarrel and not The Face. So I guess Longhorn is quite similar to Gunbarrel + Face but Longhorn is only a black lol.

Taos was the first place I ever hiked above the top of the lifts. We came down Juarez, which is not that hard. On the way up, I remember hiking by some folks getting ready to ski places that were scary just to walk past.

That was 8 or 10 years ago. I'd love to get back there again.

Longhorn is a double black (dotted black lines mean double black on the Taos trail map). And you know that trail ratings are relative to the terrain in the mountain too.

EDIT: I almost forgot... the snow today was absolutely fantastic, better than on the weekend. Still only open until Juarez but some of the other trails off the ridge are starting to get really filled up.

*Burp*

Yes, I do know trail ratings are relative to the terrain in the mountain. But I ponder why Taos is bragging about Al's Run when they got harder stuff like Longhouse, and especially the famous Highline Ridge.

I guess I missed the part where Taos brags about Al's run

Okay, correction: I feel as if everybody knows Al's Run? When I was skiing at Squaw, I met a few groups of people who were talking about Taos. Funny thing is, 75% of them mentioned Al's Run. Then, when I read this article somewhere about the US's most famous runs, Al's Run was listed somewhere in the top 5 about? Bizarre.

Like I mentioned above, Al's is a landmark and therefore everyone that comes to Taos remembers it. Also, many visitors get to ski Al's but not all venture into longhorn or the ridge.

Oh, lol thanks for the clarification!

Can't wait to get there with all this new snow!

As Simon says in post 1...here's the video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xh1H...eature=channel


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbDKi...eature=channel


Please forgive the poor camera handling. I was out of breath. I also need to read my camera owners manual and change a few settings to better record skiing.

Oh, and also as Simon says...no movement analysis...our movement may be but we were having a blast in spite of ourselves.

And 1 other thing, if anyone can pm me and tell me how to embed a video I would appreciate it. I tried it and it did not work right.

Longhouse...