Past Trips

Many of the Pajarito season passes have at least 3 free days at Purgatory ski area near Durango, so let's go use them! My rough plan is to head up afternoon or evening on Thursday Jan. 31, ski at Purgatory Friday and Saturday, then either head back to Los Alamos on Sunday Feb. 3, or ski a partial day then head back. Purgatory has a reasonable snow base now (about 40 inches). We will find a place to rent either in Durango or closer to the ski area. Let me know at bill at priedhorsky dot net if you are interested, and we can find a rental house or condo and put together the rental fee.

It's never too early to start thinking about ski season!

In a repeat of a classic outing, let's head north over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend downhill/ crosscountry/ snowshoe around Monarch Pass. Signs so far are hopeful for the ski season, and snow at Monarch is generally reliable. We will head for Salida to establish a base in a comfortable house or cabin, and spend our days in winter sports in the Monarch Pass area. Any of the 3 top Pajarito season passes offer three free days at Monarch, and otherwise tickets are relatively inexpensive online.

The sign up for this event is thru the PEEC website.  https://peecnature.org/events/details/?id=27435

Join PEEC, astrophysicist Galen Gisler, and Jean Dewart of the Los Alamos Mountaineers for an astronomy night hike and potluck dinner on Tuesday, January 15.

As the Caldera is unlikely to reopen for our Sunday trip, let's ski along the East Fork of the Jemez River instead!

This is a request for interest.   Are you interested in doing an intermediate X-C skills session?  This would be for people who have been on backcountry skis before, but who might want to do some work on turns, climbing, descending, balance, etc.  (or other skills you suggest)   We would focus on practicing, rather than touring to a destination.  

This proposed ski tour was inspired by a recent conversation with Andy Thien and Jason Halliday, who have been doing some fine ski mountaineering trips in the Jemez and Sangre de Christos.  It made me wonder if it might be feasible to ski up to Chicoma Peak this coming weekend, depending on snow conditions.

Between your holiday gift-wrapping and long-winter napping, how about a quick hike on two of Los Alamos' historic trails? We'll cover about 3 miles, go up and down and up and down 250 ft elevation change. The trails are faint, but loaded with history. Bring poles if you use them. We'll meet at the Los Alamos Medical Center at 10:30 a.m., and be done in about 2-3 hours. Please contact the leader if you are interested in going.

It's snow sport season. Yeah! Lets get together and refresh our avalache knowledge and do some transceiver exercises. It's promising to be a big snow year (dare I say it). The location is to be determined but probably in the TA/Chama area. I'm looking at locatons with enough snow to make it interesting, where we can play with our gear not far from the car, and then do something fun (it's all fun to me). If you have a suggestion please profer it. Los Alamos participants will rally at LANB at 7:15 departing nlt than 7:30.

A couple of us are heading up to Sipapu to ski for the day on Saturday - want to join us? Their snow making is well along, so that a good fraction of their hill has opened. Sipapu is of course included on most Pajarito passes. Departing Los Alamos 7:30-8:00 (TBD), departing Sipapu at 3:00 PM. LMK if you would like to join us in carpooling and skiing. Bill