I’ve been a local in both places.
Spoiler alert: It’s better in New Mexico.
Skiing is a different deal when you live close to your local mountain. And when you compare the skiing experience for those who in northern New Mexico to what people who live along the Front Range have to deal with, it’s not even close.
Colorado: Heavy Population, Less Favorable Geography, and Traffic
Colorado’s geography is unique in that the eastern half of the state is flat plains and farmland, the western half mountains. And smack down the middle of the state runs the Front Range, where the western mountains meet the eastern plains. 90% of the state’s population lies there. And if you want to travel west into the mountains, it makes for an interesting situation. If you live in Denver, Boulder, Golden, or even Colorado Springs (to a lesser extent), there is basically one route in to the mountains: via I-70 or Colorado 6 (they follow roughly the same route into the mountains) through Glenwood Canyon.
Now let’s look at population: Denver is just down the hill from where I-70 drops into Golden, with a population of 3,000,000 souls. Boulder, about 30 minutes north, has 100,000 souls (well, arguably in Boulder there are no souls per se, but that’s another matter). Golden is nestled at the foot of the mountains with about 25,000. Within a tight geographical area you’ve got at least 3,125,000 people. And people in Colorado love their mountains and love to play in them.
Since there is a single route into the mountains for three million people to boogie over to Winter Park, Arapahoe Basin, Copper Mountain, Vail, or Breckenridge (these resorts are all bunched together within roughly the same region), nightmarish, epic, world-ending traffic is the result. I-70 is a parking lot at 10,000 feet. In the winter.
Gracias, pero no.
A light day on I-70 near Vail. Multiply this by three for average traffic.
Colorado locals know that if you plan to head to one of those resorts in winter, you’re looking at a two-and-a-half hour haul, minimum. More likely, that drive metamorphoses into a four-hour grind because of the inevitable traffic backup at the Eisenhower tunnel, which crosses under the continental divide at 11,150 feet. So if you live in Denver or Boulder and you just want to “go in” for the day, you gotta do some serious planning. Like, get out the spreadsheets. There, folks are very often forced to rent a condo or stay at a hotel for a couple of nights, because the drive’s just too much to deal with. So what was a $110 ski day turns into a $1,400 weekend. For a local. Yes, there’s a resort up the hill from Boulder called Eldora and it’s a charming little hill; but even Eldora gets absolutely overwhelming traffic from Denver.
Unless you own a place in the mountains in Colorado, skiing is, in point of fact, a pain in the rear. It’s a poorly kept secret.
New Mexico: Lightly Dispersed Population, More Favorable Geography
Let’s contrast that to what it’s like if you’re in Santa Fe or Taos. New Mexico is a lightly populated place, thank God. When you move here from somewhere else or come back after having lived somewhere else, you’re immediately struck by how much breathing room there is. And this makes a difference in the winter. New Mexico’s largest city is Albuquerque, which is an hour southwest of Santa Fe, with a population of 560,000. And Santa Fe is home to only about 80,000 souls. That’s pretty much it for the entire northern part of the state. 650,000 people or so.
Yours truly and the niece and nephew at the base area in Taos
The northern part of New Mexico is sprinkled with ski resorts: Ski Santa Fe and the venerable Taos Ski Valley are the most well-known. But tucked into the Sangre de Christo and Jemez mountains are Sipapu ski area (north of Santa Fe and east of Trampas, on the east slope of Sangre de Christos on New Mexico 518), Red River (north of Taos and west of Cuesta on New Mexico 38), Pajarito (Spanish for ‘little bird,’ just up the hill from Los Alamos, off New Mexico 502), and Angel Fire (east of Taos on New Mexico 64).
Different routes to each one.
Less than 20% of the population + more favorable geography + quite a bit of skiing capacity = an entirely different skiing experience.
Somewhere on the backside in Ski Santa Fe
The Laid-Back Local Ski Routine of Santa Fe and Taos
What’s the ski routine when you live in Santa Fe? Well let’s assume you’ve packed your stuff the night before and you’re headed to Ski Santa Fe. You wake up, drink coffee (do not omit this step), hop in the car, head up Ski Valley road, park, walk to the lift, mumble something to the liftie, and hop in the chair. If it’s a normal day, you’ll be looking at your ski tips in 55 minutes. In fact, it’s so easy that just taking a half a day, driving down, having lunch at The Shed, and enjoying the afternoon doing something civilized is a viable approach to a Saturday.
If you’re headed to Taos, add an hour each way. If you drive from Santa Fe up the Rio Grande canyon on New Mexico 68, it’s about a 70 or 80-minute drive, even in winter. When I roll into Taos, I typically stop at World Cup Coffee for a latte and some convo with the local hippie types before I head up the hill.
World Cup in Taos
Then I park, hop on the shuttle, head down to the lift at the bottom of Al’s run, and up I go. Two hours from entering the car to climbing on the lift chair at Taos Ski Valley. And it’s a lovely drive to boot, with little traffic.
A carved up Kachina peak at Taos Ski Valley
So, for locals in New Mexico, the attraction of winter sports is that they remain accessible, uncrowded, relatively inexpensive, and fun. Along the Front Range, some percentage of 3,500,000 people drives into the mountains via a single route every weekend. In Santa Fe, some percentage of 650,000 people drives into the mountains via several different routes, in a dispersed fashion, every weekend.
It’s not at all the same.
Taos Ski Valley is well known as a challenging, steep mountain with some great high-altitude ridgeline skiing. And Ski Santa Fe is a wonderful hill with some great runs, and great local flavor. All of the northern NM resorts have their own character. But that’s not the point. If you want to be able to ski or board and concentrate on actually doing that rather than sitting in traffic for four hours and getting elbowed by an irritable portfolio manager from New York who forgot to take his Zoloft, come to Santa Fe.
It’s just better here.
On the way up the triple chair at Ski Santa Fe
Vőlkls are for locals
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