Taos. (Feb. 12-13)

This weekend was an interesting one. Rather than laze about on campus, I made the most of the weekend by skiing up at Taos Ski Valley (TSV). Taos is the largest ski area in New Mexico and it's well known throughout the US and the World for its extremely challenging terrain. Over 50% of the mountain is rated as expert--and believe me, it deserves that rating. The weekend started with a wake-up call of 7:30 AM. Of course, the best laid plans go astray and thus my alarm didn't go off. Fortunately, I woke myself up just in the nick of time for our 8 AM departure. It's a two hour bus ride to Taos from UWC, so most people slept. I was already awake and couldn't sleep, so I just listened to my IPod for the duration of the ride.

We arrived at Taos and got everything ready. We parked the bus in one of the parking lots and took a shuttle into the main base area. A quick stop at the season pass office was necessary in order to fetch my season pass, but before I knew it, I was headed up the main lift with Louis. Louis and I are country-mates (he's British), but we're also of similar ski ability, so we decided to ski together. We skied a few runs together before parting ways so that I could ski with Kara and Paul. Both Kara and Paul are as good as I am, if not better. We had a lot of fun just skiing a multitude of runs. Both Kara and Paul have quite a taste for moguls, something that I am not particularly good at, nor particularly interested in. Yet, Kara and Paul really put me through my paces down a lot of tree skiing.

At the end of the day, we headed back to the bus all tired and ready to crash. We drove to the hostel--the Abominable Snow Mansion--located in a tiny village called Arroyo Seco. The hostel itself is a bit rundown--something you'd expect of a hostel, however. The rooms were pretty large and comfortable. We all sat down around the fire and chatted until it was time to make dinner. I was one of those who helped to cook dinner. I had great fun creating various concoctions of curried chicken. The kitchen, itself, however, was in need of a really good clean. We ended up eating a really good dinner and going to bed pretty soon after.

I slept reasonably well--the beds weren't particularly comfortable, but I was so tired from skiing that I slept pretty heavily. We woke up pretty early--around 8 AM. The early wake-up call didn't necessarily translate into an early departure to the ski area, however. We had some very lazy people in our group. It wasn't until around 10 that we finally cruised out of the hostel. Breakfast was ok--scrambled eggs and such.

We arrived at Taos around 10:30, ready for another full day of skiing. I skied again with Kara and Paul. We had a ton of fun going up a bunch of really smooth runs. The highlight of the day was lunch. We stopped at a restaurant called "The Bavarian", which, not surprisingly, serves Bavarian food. Despite being slightly pricy (especially for a poor student), the food was amazing and the company/atmosphere even better. It was sunny and warm outside. There were a bunch of other student there with us and it was just wonderful. We finished the day with a quick run down another mogul run--this run being particularly long and painful. Nonetheless, I made it down and finished for the day.

Overall, it was a pretty good weekend. I really enjoyed the skiing and the company. It was nice to be able to ski again. I can't wait to do more in the future!