Taos, Red River and into Texas

Even though we’d had to pay a premium price for our hotel in Taos, it was a comfortable room and we had real breakfast included with the stay. Not a bowl of cereal, rubbery scrambled eggs from a warmer tray, or make-your-own waffles that stuck to the waffle maker, but a real sit-down breakfast in the restaurant.  Surprisingly meaty bacon and real eggs done perfectly with toast, orange juice, hash browns and coffee. A basic breakfast, but well-done and the first we’ve had on the trip. After breakfast, we stopped for gas and then headed for Taos Ski Valley. The ski slopes of Taos are not near the town, but are over twenty miles away. The drive thru the mountain valley to get to the ski resort was nice. Because it was still fairly early, 9 am, the Fiesta Taos revelers were still in their hotels.

We walked around Ski Valley and noticed a lot of lockers near the base of the main chair lift. More of the walkways are covered than at Angel Fire. We picked up a trail map and spoke with the chair lift operator, who said that the end of January and first of February is the best time for good snow and fewer crowds. He claimed that Taos will never get as crowded as the big Colorado resorts because Taos limits the number of lift passes on busy days. One lift was operating, but we didn’t pay to ride it. We may visit Taos during ski season but it seems too far into the mountains to drive to if the road conditions are not optimal.

From Taos Ski Valley, we drove back to a main road, then around Mount Webster to Red River Ski Resort. Phillip skied there in 1973. It’s actually where he learned to ski when he went with a couple buddies who took him to the top of the mountain and did the “sink or swim” training. He said that by the time he finally made it down the mountain, he was able to stay upright and move thru the snow. A few more trips up the chair lift and he could ski. He remembers wearing Scotch-guarded blue jeans instead of ski pants, a good reason to keep his butt out of the snow! As we drove into the ski area, which is built on the main road, Phillip talked of his memory of staying with his friends in a A-frame cabin next to the chair lift. And what did we see across the drive from the chair lift, forty years later? Three A-frame cabins! They were still there and still being used. Although the rest of the resort (and hopefully the chair lifts) had been improved and expanded in the ensuing years, Phillip was delighted the A-frames had not been torn down.

I liked the set-up of Red River better than that of Taos, so we spent more time here. We did ride this chair lift to the top of the mountain. The operator said it was an hour-long ride up and down. The views were spectacular and it did take about thirty minutes to get to the top of the mountain, but the lift was moving very slowly. I hope it moves more quickly during ski season, or a skier would spend over half their day sitting on the lift! We didn’t take our jackets, but we didn’t need them as the sun was out and the temperature at the base was about 75 degrees. Although it was Saturday, the lift had no line of people waiting to ride. The $17 per person cost may have deterred some, or it may have been because Taos, Breckenridge, and Copper Mountain were allowing bicyclists and their bicycles on the lifts to ride down the mountain. I didn’t see that at Red River. Although I like bicycles and wish I was a bicyclist like my dad had been, I was happy to see that Red River is not a summer mountain bike mecca.

At the top of the mountain, the warming hut was open, selling sodas instead of hot chocolate. Of course, it had the same overpriced snacks and sandwiches as all the other warming huts, including the one at Angel Fire. We walked around, noticing that the staff is re-working the structure of the second chair lift that comes to the top from another location on the property. It is comforting to know that maintenance work gets done here, especially after seeing those 40-year old cabins below. The lift did not take us to the actual summit of this part of the mountain, so we began walking a bit higher. The trail, although wide, was steep. The effect that the altitude and incline had on us reminded me of walking those steeps streets in Quito! We only walked as far as the first overlook area. Phillip, of course, walked closer to the edge of the ski run to look down the mountain. I contented myself with taking pictures as the run he chose to look down was a black diamond run. That means it was difficult and steep, not a run I would be using if we ski here. Not mellow enough for me.

According to the trail map, and we saw this from the warming hut, several green trails meander down from the top, winding along the mountain to the bottom. The runs under the chair lift, because it goes straight up the mountain, were black diamond, but as we rode the lift back to the base, we saw the signs where some green and blue trails cross over with their less than vertical tracks. From the chairs, we were at tree-top level at times, so we had a good view of the aspens and pine trees. We didn’t see any large animals, but we watched several squirrels scampering in the grass below. Some of the chair lift structures were open metal tubes and swallows had apparently built nests in them. A few times, I thought the swallows were going to come after us, but they just swooped around us. They were too quick for my camera to capture, however.

We ate a normally priced lunch in a diner in Red River, then turned the SUV toward Texas. Although we were just seven miles from Angel Fire Ski Resort when we got to Eagle’s Nest, we didn’t stop, as we know that area from our previous skiing adventures. We took the same route out of the mountains that we take when we go to Angel Fire, but I will say the drive was much less nerve-racking than the last time we took it, in the middle of winter after a snowstorm. Phillip and I were still hoping to see elk or maybe a moose, but our hopes dwindled as the mountains turned to plains. The antelope were in the fields between Cimarron and Springer, so we saw more of them.

After Springer, we drove almost directly east on a New Mexico road that has a 60 mph speed limit but it should be higher. Miles of nothing. 81 miles of nothing, in fact. This edge of New Mexico is again not very enchanting. It was so inhospitable that the antelope didn’t even live there. Fortunately, it was cloudy again, so the warmer lowland temperature didn’t bother us. We turned the air conditioner on in the SUV for the first time in a while and it did keep us cool. As I look thru the pictures I took during this portion of the trip, I see an occasional out cropping of cedar trees near the few dry creek beds we crossed, but mainly just short bushes in the field.

After Clayton, we entered Texas. Three vehicles had stopped on the side of the road to take a picture of this sign. We frequently saw cars pulled over for the state signs (except New Mexico, I don’t think any else was enchanted, either), but my camera can get the picture of the sign at 60 mph so we never stop. This sign is about ¼ mile west of the town of Texline, Texas. Immediately after Texline, we began to see acres and acres of irrigated farm land filled with tall, healthy corn or dark green soybeans (remember, fields are rotated between corn, which uses nitrogen, and soybeans, which add nitrogen to the soil). The view wasn’t this green all the way to Amarillo, but the change from New Mexico shrub land was dramatic at this point. We continued on toward home, stopping for the night in Amarillo as we still have about 450 miles to go, even if we’ve made it to Texas. Tomorrow, we will drive to the ranch and then back to Zelda on Monday to conclude this adventure.