Skiing in New Mexico

New Mexico’s long and distinguished skiing history began with the miners of the late 19th century and its pioneer settlers. Ski area development was launched in the 1930s in the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque and quickly spread to the southernmost range of the Rocky Mountains—the Sangre de Cristos, north of Santa Fe. Students of a boarding school, the Los Alamos Ranch School, took up the sport in the Jemez Mountains, and when the school was occupied in the 1940s by American and international scientists like Neils Bohr working to create the world’s first atomic bomb, they enthusiastically pursued skiing in their rare spare time. Taos Ski Valley’s founding in 1955 elevated the scene to world-class status, and today, there are eight major downhill ski areas and one cross-country center stretching from the deserts of south-central New Mexico to the Colorado border.

128 pages, 183 images

Daniel Gibson is an editor, journalist, and author. The author of Skiing New Mexico: A Guide to Snow Sports in the Land of Enchantment, he has written a regional weekly column for almost 30 years called Snow Trax. Jay Blackwood is a committee member of the New Mexico Ski Hall of Fame and curator of the New Mexico Ski Museum. He was the manager of Sandia Peak Tramway for many years.