From: mueller@delta.cs.fsu.edu (Frank Mueller)
Subject: trip report from Taos, NM
Organization: Florida State University Computer Science
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 22:13:19 GMT

OK, I'm back from pre X-mas skiing in Taos, NM. Here's a short report:

The skiing: Since 40 some inches are not a lot of snow for Taos although
enough, some of the slopes had to remain closed. This does not effect the
greens and blues, but the steeps are severly limited. They had a "menu" of
steeps posted next to the ski patrol on the top, allowing experts to ski
on varying slopes throughout the day. Typically, Castor, Lorelei, Longhorn,
Spencer and the upper part of Al's would be open for an hour, one after
the other such that one could easily "migrate" from one interesting slope
to the other. The first steep opened at around 10am, the last one closed
around 3, sometimes 4. The opening and closing was tentative as the ski
partol turned out to be unreliable, i.e. too ealy or too later in opening
and/or closing a slope that was scheduled according to the menu. Also, since
all experts were skiing one steep at a time, it tended to be crowded on this
one slope.

The west basin, Huntziger Bowl, and the ridge were closed. It snowed most
of the time (but not too strong) and we had high winds on Friday which added
to avalanche danger. Since last season almost all of it was open before X-mas,
the limitations were sometimes annoying. No lift lines, of course, and the
tickets were only $25 which made up for the limitations.

The new quad is too short, it doesn't reach up into the steeps of the west
basin and therefore only serves blues and greens. Not even the less experienced
skiers of us liked it.

Equipment: We rented our stuff at Cottan's, not slopeside but 1 mile before
the ski valley on the access road. The basic rentals are only $7.50 there,
and you can swap at the slope side store or even store the equipment over
night. You only have to return it to the store on the access road. (Slope side
rentals cost about $4-$6 more, performance packages even more...) In our case,
there was a note at the non-slope side store that they had closed the store
for the day due to lack of customers but we could get the retals for the
discount price slope-side. There are also coupons in various bars and restaurants
for $7.95 rentals.

Food: The best restaurants in our opinion (and small budget) are still Michael's
Kitchen for mexican food, the Outback (?) pizza behind the Video Casa on the
nothern end of town (spicy greek pasta and excellent pizza!) and La Cigal (french,
the best cheese fondue for lots of white wine). But there are others which we
didn't have time for...

Apres Ski: Since the End-of-the-Universe Cafe closed, our varorite place was
the new Eske Brewery with really stong and good beer. Tim's right next to Cottam's
slope-side store also sells their beer. The Taos Inn is also nice if there's
still room right next to the fire side.

Weather: It was very cold (-20 @ night, < 20 over the day), I even got a
frost bite since I was stupid enough to wear my sunglasses whose metal frame
touched my face in one place. (A little tape fixed this problem.) We came
with a diesel car which we exchanged for a regular rental because it would
not want to start in the morning. (But nothing can stop me from skiing -- almost.)

We had a lot of fun, got our X-mas shopping done, and will probably be back next
year.

Frank
mueller@cs.fsu.edu