Taos, New Mexico

New Mexico skiing with Alain Veth

Taos Ski Valley attracts skiers from everywhere to its terrain, its powder, its unique vibe, and its just plain fun. Privately owned – it has kept its unique identity, has expanded services and I believe the most environmentally committed ski area in the world as the first ski resort in the world to become a certified B-Corporation and it has a 2030 net zero carbon commitment.

Alain Veth grew up skiing – first as a racer, at the World Junior Championships, on the Europa Cup and World Cup winning the National Championship of Spain along with National titles in France before turning Pro. Alain became a fully certified ski instructor and ski coach first in France and later in the United States. He and his wife own and run one of the countries best ski shops, Le Ski mastery. Alain's knowledge and passion for the sport of skiing is very evident in our discussion and contagious.

Tucked into a narrow valley in northern New Mexico, about 30 minutes from the town of Taos, Taos Ski Valley is not the biggest ski resort in North America. It doesn't need to be. With roughly 1,300 acres of terrain and about 3,200 feet of vertical, it is relatively compact by modern resort standards, but what it lacks in size it more than makes up for in character, challenging terrain, dry powder and an unmistakable sense of place.

What makes skiing Taos particularly memorable is that the mountain doesn't reveal itself immediately. When you first arrive, you see a narrow valley surrounded by steep mountains and, most prominently, the famous House Run, which drops dramatically from above. It can give first-time visitors the impression that Taos is a mountain designed exclusively for fearless experts. But that's only a tiny glimpse of what is actually there.

A Mountain With a Personality

Taos has a distinctly different personality from many large American ski resorts. It isn't about endless boulevards of groomed snow or hundreds of lifts. Instead, the mountain feels intimate, challenging and slightly mysterious. The terrain is tucked away in ridges, bowls, chutes and glades, meaning that you have to explore to understand it.

The front side gives you a taste of the mountain, but the real adventure begins when you head toward the back. Modern lifts have made that exploration considerably easier than it was decades ago. Today, skiers can take a high-speed quad toward the upper mountain and then choose between continuing across the front or heading into the back side, where lifts such as Chair 7, 7A, 4 and 12 provide access to progressively more challenging terrain. Chair 12 reaches Katina Peak, opening up some of the highest and most dramatic skiing on the mountain.

For advanced skiers, Taos can become addictive. Alain remembers spending hours lapping Chair 2, accessing a series of steep runs and challenging terrain. From the ridge, skiers can drop into areas such as West Basin or explore the Highline, where the terrain becomes more natural and less like a conventional marked ski run. Trees, chutes and changing lines allow experienced skiers to create their own route down the mountain.

Kachina Peak: Where Taos Gets Serious

For many strong skiers, the crown jewel of Taos Ski Valley is Kachina Peak.

The addition of the lift to the top of Kachina transformed the experience by making a huge amount of previously difficult-to-access terrain much easier to reach. From the top, skiers can explore a remarkable collection of chutes, bowls and steep lines, including Cabin Chutes, K1 through K5, Main Street, Hunziker and several other areas. Some sections even offer opportunities for cliff jumping for those with the necessary skills and conditions. The vertical is substantial, too. From the upper mountain down toward the base of the peak, there is approximately 1,500 feet of terrain, creating long, demanding runs that can leave even strong skiers wondering where their legs went.

This is one of the reasons Taos has such a strong reputation among expert skiers.

Taos Powder Is Better Than You Might Think

New Mexico might not be the first place that comes to mind when someone says “powder skiing,” but that's exactly why Taos powder can be such a pleasant surprise.

The resort sits at a high elevation, with the ski area beginning around 9,000 feet and climbing substantially higher. That altitude helps preserve the snow and, when storms arrive, the result can be remarkably light, dry powder. Alain recalls seasons when Taos received roughly 300 to 350 inches of snow, while more recently the resort has still experienced substantial snowfall during good winters. The high elevation also provides an important advantage during lean snow years. While no ski resort can control the weather, Taos has the altitude and snowmaking infrastructure to establish a solid base and then take advantage when natural snow arrives.

Sign at Taos Base

You Don't Have to Be an Expert

Despite Taos's reputation for steep skiing, beginners and intermediates absolutely have a place on the mountain.

The resort offers green and blue terrain, particularly as the season progresses and the snowpack builds. The key difference is that Taos doesn't offer endless miles of gentle terrain in the way some enormous destination resorts do. Instead, the mountain encourages skiers to progress. The better your skills become, the more of Taos opens up. That makes it an especially interesting destination for skiers who want to improve. Spend a day working on your technique, then gradually venture farther up the mountain.

The Backcountry Is Serious Business

For expert skiers looking beyond the resort boundary, the terrain around Taos becomes even more dramatic. Areas behind Kachina and around Lake Fork offer wilderness skiing with steep terrain and significantly fewer protections than the controlled ski area.

Alain describes Lake Fork as particularly impressive, with terrain reaching approximately 48 degrees in places. This is not casual sidecountry skiing. Snow conditions vary from year to year, routes can contain cliffs and hazards, and some terrain is not monitored in the same way as the resort.

If you want to explore Taos backcountry skiing, hire a qualified local guide or instructor. Someone who knows the mountain can make the difference between an unforgettable adventure and a very bad decision. As Alain puts it, the mountain always wins, so knowledge and respect are essential.

When Is the Best Time to Ski Taos?

For a reliable Taos ski vacation, February and March are hard to beat.

Alain identifies roughly the middle of February through March 15 as a particularly dependable period for good coverage, snowfall and overall conditions. March can be exceptional, combining good snow with warmer temperatures and longer days.

Of course, winter doesn't follow a calendar. Taos can ski beautifully in January, and a late-season storm can transform the mountain. But if you're planning a trip specifically around snow quality and coverage, February and March are excellent bets.

Don't Just Ski Taos — Experience Taos

One of the biggest mistakes would be to fly into New Mexico, ski Taos Ski Valley and then fly home without experiencing the surrounding culture. The town of Taos, New Mexico, has a personality all its own, with Native American Pueblo culture, historic architecture, art galleries, restaurants and a distinctive Southwestern atmosphere. Alain, who grew up in France, says he feels surprisingly at home there because of that strong sense of culture and individuality.

The accommodation situation is also different from many ski resorts. There is lodging directly in the ski valley, including The Blake and condominiums, but the town of Taos provides considerably more choice. And because Taos Ski Valley intentionally limits the number of skiers it can accommodate each day, the mountain retains a more intimate feel than many major American resorts.

Food is another part of the experience. Around the ski valley, visitors can choose from several restaurants and mountain dining options, while Taos itself offers an even wider selection. The combination of Southwestern culture, European influences and local ingredients makes eating here part of the adventure rather than simply something you do after skiing.

The Real Magic of Taos

Perhaps the best reason to ski Taos comes from Alain himself. For him, skiing isn't about speed records, vertical feet or proving something to somebody else. After decades of racing, coaching and teaching, he still loves carving a perfect turn, skiing bumps, hiking for fresh terrain and simply being alone on the mountain. He describes hiking as a way of getting closer to nature and disconnecting from everything else. When he skis the upper mountain, particularly around the peak at nearly 12,000 feet, he can return to the valley feeling as though he has been gone for a week, even after only a couple of hours.

That may be the best description of Taos Ski Valley.

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My Favs

• Best Restaurant – With the St Bernard gone - I have to go with Alain's choices in the podcast or try some of the great Southwestern Food in town

• Best Apres - the Bavarian Austrian vibe and beer

• Best Run- Depends on whats groomed but if it is groomed Reforma

• Find Alain - Le Ski Mastery

Episode Transcript

Welcome to Where to Ski. I'm your host, John Morgan. Today, we're in Taos.

Grab your skis, let's go skiing in New Mexico. My guest today grew up in France, traveled the world skiing, now lives, works, teaches, and skis in Taos every day. Alain Beth grew up skiing, first as a racer, hitting the World Junior Championships, the Europa Cup, and the World Cup, winning the national championship of Spain, as long with national titles in France before turning pro.

He became a fully certified ski instructor and ski coach, first in France and later in the U.S. He and his wife own and run one of the country's best ski shops, Niski Mastery. Alain's knowledge and passion for the sport of skiing is very evident in our discussion today, and it's contagious. Taos Ski Valley attracts skiers from everywhere to its terrain, its powder, its unique vibe, and it's just plain fun.

Privately owned, it's kept its unique identity, has expanded services, and I believe it's the most environmentally committed ski area in the world. It's the first ski resort to become fully certified B Corp, has a 2030 net zero carbon commitment, and they run electric cats and snowmobiles. It's about a 30-minute drive from the really cool town of Taos, New Mexico.

Taos Ski Valley is an intimate area with about 1,300 acres, putting it on the small side, but it's got 3,200 feet of vertical. It's the highest mountain in New Mexico, and half the runs are ranked intermediate and below, and half the runs are really fun and challenging. So let's find out more from Alain.

Alain, thank you for joining us today. I'm excited to talk about Taos. After you arrive in Taos, it looks small.

You get to the mountain and front and center is Owl's Run with moguls the size of small cars, and you can't see most of Taos from the base. Most of the gems of this beautiful mountain are hidden. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about what to expect when you get to Taos.

Well, I think you're going to be very surprised on what Taos has to offer because it's a very narrow valley. It's at the end of a cul-de-sac. The mountains are sharp all the way around.

I don't know if you've seen the Mont Blanc up above, but in Taos, right there, you've got Willow Peak, which is the highest peak in New Mexico and which is at the end of the valley, of Taos Ski Valley. It's kind of impressive when you come to Taos and you arrive in that sinuous road up to the ski valley, the ski area. All you see is kind of black, double black.

So it takes you by surprise a little bit because the terrain right away is very present in this ski area when you come to Taos. It is, and you don't see a lot of the mountain when you're there. What you see is that one run, and that's why they have the sign at the bottom, and I'll include the sign when I post the podcast.

It's pretty funny. I was laughing the first time I saw that. No, for sure.

You've got the front side, you've got the back side in Taos, and you only see like one-thirtieth of the ski area when you look at that house run, which is the famous house run. Actually, I did quite well in some of the local races in the past. And so when you take Trail 1, in the old days, you had, I believe it was a Poma in the early stage, like in 1958, early 1960s.

And so imagine with 210, 205, wooden ski with bare, how is it called, the bare claws or the bare paws for the binding. If you were to fall and you're a beginner, you had to ski house run. So people were really tenacious and very brave to be able to take that Poma to the top of house run, to be able to access the good back behind.

But nowadays, you've got a speed quad, getting you to a top of Trail 1. You can take a gentle trail, which leads you to Trail 2, which leads you to the top of the mountain. And then from here, you've got two options. You can keep on skiing the front side, or you can go to the back side where you've got chair 7, 7A, chair 4, and chair 12, which actually goes to the very top of the mountain, which is called Katina Peak, at 12.8 something.

Is that the new chair? We have many new chairs, but chair 12 has been new, I don't know, for the last, what, four or five years. Ernie Blake had a vision to eventually put a chair in 1973. He put a marker at the bottom of Katina Peak.

And with the new ownership, Louis Bacon, we were able to find that marker and from that marker, be able to start that chair going up Katina. So for experts, top end skiers, where's the best place to start doing laps? And what's the best way to ski that mountain? I mean, everywhere. I mean, for experts, I mean, I like to consider myself as an expert.

I've been skiing Taos for the last 38 years, and I pretty much ski everywhere. And I jumped a lot of the rocks than what Taos has to offer. I mean, to me, when I was younger, if I was to reflect when I came to Taos, you know, like, you know, 38 years ago, one of the places that was really, you know, vibrant to me was chair number two, and you needed to do a small little hike to get you to the ridge.

And when you're on the ridge, you either go to the West Basin, or you go to the high line. And from that, the West Basin, it's basically a black, double black. It's not too short, not too long either.

And you can do lap on that chair too, like no others. So you'll start from Oster, end it up all the way to, I think you can all the way to Tiber trees, and you've got black, double black after double black, and you've got about 10 or 12. And so if you had your local, you work in a restaurant, you're a ski bum, and you've got a two hour break, you're going to just hop on chair two, and you're going to start to do lap on that chair too.

And, and I mean, it's, it's an event, you know, for, for, for aggressive skiers, for good skiers, or, or maybe not so good skiers, if you like steep, and you like to be challenged. That was, I remember those days so vividly, then I could lap chair two, like no others and have a great workout and get in trouble many times on that chair, which really, really tickled me, to be honest with you. It was, it was a treat, you know, to be able to know that, you know, I've been visiting so many, I've been traveling the world through my racing careers, literally in so many different continents, and Taos to me as everything that, that I want them, you know, to be, to be happy to be able to ski and evolve and, and express myself the way I wish.

Yeah, and Cachita Bowl is pretty nice up above that too, where that, there's some really incredible terrain up there. Yep, you know, then that's, you know, for quick laps, you know, chair two is awesome. And then if you want to research for maybe like a bin path, the terrain, then is maybe a little less frequented because the, the hike is a little further, maybe, you know, 10 minute hike, you can go to the highline.

And the, the highline was, you know, you've got, you know, Juarez and, you know, Don Quixote, then Juarez and Nino Siros, and, you know, two bucks and you go all the way to Trescal. And, and so that also, it's facing north. You've got, it's a little bit more wild in a sense that you've got trees, but you can create what you want out of it, you know, it's not just a run, a designated run.

It's, you've got so many trees, then you can really create what you want. And that will be, you know, that will be the two ridges, you know. And then in the old days, when the, when the chair was not there, you keep on going on that ridge and you go all the way to the peak.

And, and of the peak, of course, you, you've got, that's even a bigger terrain and you've got about 1500 vertical feet from the top of the peak to the, to the base of the peak, which is the top of chair four. And, and at that point, you, I mean, you can create anything you want also. That was the old days.

And now for us, what, five years, you know, I'm sure I'm wrong, on my date, maybe it could be six or seven, but, you know, I would say the last five or six years, now you've got that lift that, that gets you to the top of Kachina. And, and it's amazing what that mountain, basically Kachina with that new lift is basically a whole ski area on its own because it's black, double black. And it's a wonderful search, so to speak.

And you go from cabin chutes to K1, K2, K3, K4, K5, then you've got main street and then you've got Hunziker, Hunziker ball, you've got dogleg, you've got the paws, you've got the tail, you've got an amazing amount of terrain with some cliff jumping, if you wish. That's big of it is they do a lot of the comp, the extreme comp on this mountain, on that section of the mountain. And it has, it offers a great terrain for those 1500 vocal feet.

That's big. That's yeah. That's a long run too.

That's a long run. Yeah. Yeah.

Is there any off-piste skiing in Taos? Well, I want to say yes, but the ski, I mean, it's not like Telluride or Crescent Butte or even up to last year, Steamboat, where you've got a gate and then it's out of bound. So to speak, we don't have that, but you've got locals and there's a website, there's an ex-ski patrol that used to be a ski patrol in Taos, I forget the name of his website. And I apologize for that, but he monitored the snowpack and you've got great terrain out, you know, behind Kachina, you've got a terrain called, well, you've got, you know, Willow Peak, it's a whole cirque, a peak with no name, and also you've got Lake Fork.

And, you know, it's even bigger than Kachina and it's not monitored. You have to ski by pair and you're going to ski up to the top of Lake Fork and the top of Lake Fork is like about 48 degrees. And it's a beautiful, beautiful, and that's the wilderness.

It's like a national forest. That's pretty spectacular. We have a lot of listeners that like to try and do backcountry and we always tell them they should take a guide or an instructor, somebody that really knows the area, if they try and do that.

Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. Yeah.

You got to have people that know how to be able to, you know, avoid avalanches and it helps even if you're just skiing on the mountain, it helps to have someone show you around the first day or so. No, for sure. I mean, I've got a great clientele and I've got some people, all they want to do is terrain.

And also with a snowpack, you know, from one year to another is not a given, then everything's going to be open and running from one year to another because of the snowpack and because of the tightness of some of the runs that we have, we have to have a good coverage. Sometimes if you just drop into the, you know, Cuervo or Sanzao, you can be cliffed out, you know, you enter, you know, you enter what you think is a chute and you're going to be cliffed out. And you definitely need to know where you're going because Taos has that type of terrain.

So you need to take the mountain with respect and the mountain is always going to win. So you really have to have a lot of respect for it, a good amount of knowledge, talk to the locals, talk to the pros to be able to show you the way if you are like a first time skier in Taos. What about intermediate and beginner skiers? There's quite a bit of terrain for them too.

Yeah, you know, I mean, Taos, you know, I like to think Taos as everything can offer everything from any ski level of skiers. I mean, we have great, I mean, early season, we've got great amount of snowmaking, you know, blue, green runs and blue runs. It's all man-made snow.

And then, of course, through the winter with the snowpack and snow accumulation, it's being groomed. And we, I mean, basically we don't have really firm snow in Taos. It's nice.

It's compact. It's a solid man-made snow base. But we really, really have, you know, it's not there.

It's not going to be, you know, a keystone, you know, when you've got miles of green terrain, miles of blue terrain. But, you know, all beginners, they better learn how to make the first step quick to be able to enjoy the mountain. You know, we do have the terrain to be able to make a good progression for novice and intermediate skiers.

And the better they are, the more the mountain has to offer. It really, it can really dump there. Actually, this week, you've gotten what, about 25, 30 inches? Yeah, maybe not as much, but I think, yeah, you could be right.

I think I stopped counting after maybe 24 inches. It was 18, then I was, there was three and another little something today, maybe, you know, three or four. So, yeah, Taos can get a good snow accumulation, like, you know, 300 some inches a year.

That was, you know, three, 350 in the past. That was a common winter for us. And it's not, it's not heavy snow.

You know, you'd think somewhere down south, it might be heavier, but that's pretty light stuff. You're high enough and it's dry enough that a lot of the snow you get is pretty light. Yeah.

I mean, the snow content, I don't think just like Salt Lake City, when it's like 4% of, you know, humidity on the snow, I think maybe 8%, but it's, you know, all depends. Some snow can come a little dense, but overall, I'd say maybe, you know, 7, 6, 7, 8% of humidity is in the snow content. Overall, it's pretty down light.

It's not like, you know, on the East Coast or the West Coast where, you know, the snow can be light for like in Washington State or Washington, where it could be light for a couple of hours and then suddenly can be raining. And the snow is very challenging to manage. In that respect, in comparison, we do have light snow, yes.

Yeah. You don't get Sierra cement. No, we don't.

No, no, we don't. It's light. And we start high, you know, the towers, it's amazing.

People think it's in the middle of desert, which it is, but this area started 90 to 9,400 feet. You know, so 9,000 feet, it's high. You know, it's just like, it's the same elevation as the Highway 70, you know, where you go in Colorado, you know.

Even though we are so far South, we do have that altitude to be able to make snow in a lean snow year. And then when it does snow, we do have a good quality snow. What's the best month, you think, to get down to Taos? I've been there in March and it gets warm, it gets really nice.

That's a good question. You cannot, I mean, great. I mean, right now we are skiing great, you know, and it's, you know, the middle of January.

I mean, really to bank on a good, solid base, you know, like the middle, early February to the 15th of March, you know, during those six weeks, that's going to be prime. March can be incredible. I've seen March when it was warm, but, you know, February, March, those two months, you can bank on having good snow, good snow coverage, having snowfall during your stay, and really enjoy the map.

Taos isn't just all about skiing. You know, the town is really, really unique in terms of a ski town. You know, there's Pueblos, there's the square down there, there's some pretty cool restaurants, there's a lot of art.

Yeah. You know, for sure. You know, you said it all.

I think, I mean, it's even more known in the summertime. Taos is maybe even more known in summertime than in winter. But if you want diversity and a sense of culture, I mean, Taos really has it all.

There's a great sense of culture. It's, yeah, it's like no others. You know, if I like Taos and being a European, being from France originally, I'm feeling very much at home in Taos.

What about hotels around Taos? There's not a lot up on the hill. There's a couple, but not much up there, is there? Yeah, no, I think the ski valley is doing a good job with the renovation and the, of the infrastructure. I mean, it used to be a little peasant village, and now we, I think we have a with the Blake, the Blake Residence, the Blake's Hotel.

You've got, let's see, we've got some condos also as well. You've got the Edelweiss, the Counterhart condos. I mean, it's, I mean, compared to, you know, other ski area, we may be a little limited as far as lodging goes, but we can accommodate most of the demand.

And Taos has a lot more to offer, the town of Taos, as far as lodging goes. So we can accommodate the crowd. The maximum crowd, based on the contract with the service, the first service, is about 5,000, maybe, I understand, 4,800 skiers visit at the peak of frequency.

So we cannot have more than 5,000 people, 5,000 skiers per day in a busy day. So even if we were to have more hotels and so forth, we can only accommodate 5,000 skiers. So it's maybe for the reason why we also doesn't have quite as much as other ski areas, as far as accommodation goes.

So what's your favorite place to grab a snack on the mountain? Well, I would have told you the St. Bernard. Yeah, they're gone though. That's, you know, Jean passed away two years ago.

You know, I thought he was going to live forever, but he, you know, he, you know, he leave us about 86 years old, but his presence is dearly with us every day. So that was, you know, for the people to come to Taos who never experienced the St. Bernard, they are missing something. But, you know, Taos has a lot to offer still.

You know, you have the Dare Garden, you know, that's Christophe Brunel. Both of his parents had the Hotel Thunderbird, you know, in the old days. And he's doing a great job to have really a good cuisine, lunch and dinner.

You know, it's like organic, homemade. It's really delicious and beautiful. But you've got Blonde Bear, you've got the Blake, you've got the Backdoor 38.

You've got, you know, you've got the Honda Lodge, which also offer great menu, lunch and dinner. So, you know, you are here for a week, you've got definitely, you know, six, you know, five, six, seven places that you can bounce from one another to be able to accommodate either your lunch or your dinner. And then there's always town and there's tons down in town.

Oh, my gosh. And then you go to town. I mean, you know, I live in Seiko, so, you know, I go to ASEC, I go to Medley, you know, like those are really close to Seiko.

I don't need to go to town to get a good restaurant. So I rarely go to town because I live in Seiko. I live literally eight miles away from the ski area.

So I rarely go to town. But I know, you know, like during the summertime, there's a lot to offer. And I know a few in town.

But, you know, for the winter, I limited myself like more around to where I live and the ski area. So you spend a lot of time skiing and teaching. What's your philosophy around what skiing does for you and how you like to transmit that to others that you run into skiing? That's a big question.

I don't know where to start. I mean, skiing has been my life. You know, I started to ski at three years old.

I raced for 20 years. I stopped racing at 27 years old. You know, French national ski team, World Pro Tour, did some, you know, European Cup and World Cup.

I mean, I traveled the world, you know, through ski racing. And then after my ski racing career, I worked for the I worked for the U.S. ski team for three years. And after being on the World Cup with Stan Marikini on the U.S. ski team, I decided to, you know, drop my suitcase somewhere and Taos happened to be the place.

So, you know, skiing, either ski racing as a professional was my life and I did it for 20 years. But also at 18 years old, I was able to also go through my certification with the French certification, coaching and teaching as well at the U.S.S.A. and the PSIA. So I always have that education and that formation, you know, of, you know, translating and transmitting my passion of skiing to my friends, first and foremost, my family, of course, and also our guests.

And so, you know, to me, you know, like, you know, I'm 62 and, you know, skiing is my passion. I love to share that with my guests and my friends. And, you know, I'm a simple man.

I teach during the day. I take off my shop during first thing in the morning. I open the shop, you know, all the way to 9.30. Then I go teach, then have a little lunch, come back, make a few sales.

And then I tune skis at night all the way to, you know, 10 o'clock at night. That's my routine. So I am always surrounded with that energy, that atmosphere during the winter.

And I love it. I don't want to change it in the world. That's a great response.

I know it's a hard question. What's your own favorite day when you don't have to teach and you get a chance to just go ski Taos? Where do you go? What do you ski? And what are you skiing on these days? Well, it's I ski everything. It's all depends.

I mean, all depends on snow conditions. I love to carve. I love that that racing turn, you know, all depends, you know, all depends what's going to be the topic of the day.

If I want to if I want to go fast, I put my GS ski on or my master GS. Either way, I've got some GS and I'm just going to rip around on the groomers. We've got lower stuff.

We've got field fronts. The lower front side is absolutely awesome. But also I can go back to the shop, switch it up and take some shorter skis a little wider and I can hit the steep.

You know, all depends the mood that I am on. You know, the conditions are good. I love to ski the steep and I love to to hike.

And because hiking is a way to, you know, make it like it's a communion with a mountain. It's getting close to the nature. Not take your phone with you or it's in your pocket.

It's simply not answering your phone. It's you on the mountain and your slope and your ability to perform to the level that you wish. You know, so to me, I don't know what's a perfect day.

I've got so many perfect days just to keep my ski on is a perfect day. You know, I don't need to go, you know, 200 miles an hour to have a perfect day. I can ski slow, have a good day.

I can ski fast, having a good day, ski the bumps and the terrain, having a great day. To me, if I ski on my own, I like the bumps. I like to challenge myself into a bump situation.

I like the steep and I like like, you know, off the peak. If I go chair one, chair two, drop down to the backside and go to the backside and ski the peak, that would be a really good day. You know, to be up on the mountain and ski the peak.

When I come back and I ski for two hours on the upper mountain, I come back, I feel like I've been gone for a week. It's just how the mountain kind of treats you or the mountain has an effect upon your your your emotions. I'm not kidding.

I mean, I ski the peak. I come back maybe because I go all the way to 12,000 feet high. When I come back, I say, where have I been? You know, and I feel this way.

You know, I really feel almost disconnected to the valley after, you know, evolving in such a high altitude. You're a man of my own heart. That sounds like that sounds awesome.

I know that it's almost for me, it's almost a religious experience to go skiing. Yeah, in many ways. It's it's yeah, it's your connection, your mind over your body, your your your mind over the terrain.

And to me, it's really, you know, I'm getting older like everybody, but but I think I would favor and that's also my way of teaching. I favor alignment. I favor, you know, working with both legs, with both feet.

It's not just power onto the outside foot. You know, it's finding finding the alignment, finding first and foremost, a great sense of balance, lateral and four and a half, and also finding a great alignment onto your edge angle. You can steer, you can carve.

But when you find that alignment and you raise these forces with with strength, but also with a lot of balance, then you have a sense of, you know, it's that fine balance which creates all that that that that glide, but also that control. And and when you can really make your ski work for your favor, your alignment and your technique on your favor, and then you make those beautiful turns on the mountain, that communion is I don't want to be anywhere in the world, but just be in the moment to enjoy that present moment. And there's not, I don't know, maybe people playing golf can can feel that in that two seconds when they deliver the shot, possibly, but a run lasts a lot longer than, you know, than a couple of seconds, you know, so when you are committed in the top of the peak, and you say, I'm not going to stop.

And this, this is the line that I'm, that I'm really focusing on. And you do what your minds tell you to do. And your body allows you to do what your minds want you to do.

It's very fulfilling. Everything else goes away. Yeah, exactly.

So tell us about Muski Mastery. It's one of the best known shops in the country. Well, I don't know what to tell you.

It's, it's, it's on, you know, with my wife and I, we started in 1990. After I was done with the US ski team in 1990, we, you know, I saved some money to be able to, I wanted to, I wanted to go back to, to, to Taos because of Romain. And so during those three years, I've saved some money.

And I say, what can I do to support a family? And ski teaching was good, but maybe not quite enough to be able to support a family of four. And so with the experience that I had, I, and the money that I saved, I said, okay, let's start, you know, a ski shop. And the first thing that I did is to save $25,000 of, of what, what I made, you know, in the course of those, you know, maybe the last two years of my contract with Dynamic.

And I bought a Montana stone riding. And, and that was the beginning of, I guess, a fairly long story because I've been operating, being the owner and operator of a ski master with my wife for the last 34, 34 years to give the very best experience to our clients and friends. And if you're going to be here for three days, I want you to make the best out of the three days with the technology and what the, the, the industry has to offer.

And sometimes I'm so proud of when we set people up, the family, we do snowboarding as well. And so we, you know, we've got a family of four, the family of five, when they walk out of the door, you would never think then this is a rental gear. They look like real pros, even though they miss, they may ski only three days a year, big, big impact.

And that's what really started the ski mastery is our ski tuning. And so for the stone grinding, then we have, and that has been a progressive, that has been a progression as far as equipment and gears. Now the ski mastery, or not yet, maybe in a couple of years, the bank owns it, but hopefully in a couple of years, that'll be mine.

We own a Montana Crystal Rock, and it does 35 pairs of skis an hour. And it does an incredible job as far as the glide, as far as, you know, the base bevel with the HTT, the glide with that beautiful 100 different type of program that we can, you know, put onto the base. I, I, I work on your skis and, and that's my commitment, my commitment that I've been having for the last 34 years.

Alain, thank you so much.

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