I demoed a pair for their high noons two years ago and really liked them. My Mom tried their big nose kates and like them as well.

Driving from Houston area to Durango at the end of the week to ski Purgatory over Spring Break. Does anyone have any pro tips for my route once I get to New Mexico/Colorado? Map says once I get to Albuquerque to head north on 550. Sound good?

Yep that's the straightest shot and safest in all weather
Eat at El Bruno's in Cuba

Thanks.

Thinking about making it to Roswell and stay the night there on the way up.

We've been making this drive regularly for years and stay in Albuqurque overnight. It's a tough first day - but makes the second day much easier/nicer. Roswell is a little out of the way - but I guess makes sense if you want to cut that first day a little shorter.

Another edit to add...we make this drive to Telluride or Ridgway, which is a few hours further than Durango. Roswell probably makes good sense heading to Durango!

There's a good Italian restaurant in Roswell, but yeah it's a bit out of the way. I always go Dallas/Wichita falls/amarillo or temple/Abilene/sweetwater/clovis/ft sumner/Santa Rosa. Not sure where I'd want to overnight on either of those drives west of amarillo or lubbock

That route is the way we go every year. Basically up 84 through Lubbock to Clovis, then over to Fort Sumner, up to Santa Rosa, over to Albuquerque on I-40, then up 550 to Durango. As a group, we drive shifts right through, but if I go myself, I stop in Santa Rosa, Albuquerque, or that area for a short motel stay and rest.

Per the Google maps it appears to be roughly 16-16.5 hours whether we go through Lubbock, Amarillo, or Roswell. Roswell gets us the furthest at around 10 hours with 6 and a half hours the next day. We aren't able to leave until late morning so that puts us there around 10 pm with stops.

AGCAK said:

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Per the Google maps it appears to be roughly 16-16.5 hours whether we go through Lubbock, Amarillo, or Roswell. Roswell gets us the furthest at around 10 hours with 6 and a half hours the next day. We aren't able to leave until late morning so that puts us there around 10 pm with stops.

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The Roswell route overall has by far the worst roads overall of the trip.

Try to spend as little time in NM as possible.

Not that much farther and an easier drive to do the 160 route through Colorado. Prettier too and 287/87 is a GREAT road now.

4 lanes divided. Bucees in Amarillo.

Roswell sucks. We spent the night one year. Thieves spent some time trying to steal our bikes off locked rack. No good restaurants. I agree with above post, spend as little time in New Mexico as possible.

I have traveled these routes many times. Agree that NM sucks and Lubbock is a much better layover spot. Amarillo is too far north. Agree the drive through Santa Fe/Pagosa is much more scenic.

I hope you guys get speeding tickets next time you drive through the land of enchantment

Charismatic Megafauna said:

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I hope you guys get speeding tickets next time you drive through the land of enchantment

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Shhhh....let them drive through NM and get on out. Roswell and all the areas of I-40 and south of it is ***** The I-25 north from Albuquerque to Santa Fe to Las Vegas to Raton is beautiful. So is the valley north from Santa Fe through Cuba. Their equating all of NM with Roswell and Santa Rosa is like equating all of Texas with Midland/Odessa

maroonblood90 said:

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I have traveled these routes many times. Agree that NM sucks and Lubbock is a much better layover spot. Amarillo is too far north. Agree the drive through Santa Fe/Pagosa is much more scenic.

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Disagree - both the northern route to FW and Amarillo and over and the route of 84 through Lubbock are both very equivalent. I've done both over the decades a hundred times.

Picking up some volkl revolt 124s this week. Next year is sure to be better than these last two, right?!

Tecolote said:

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maroonblood90 said:

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I have traveled these routes many times. Agree that NM sucks and Lubbock is a much better layover spot. Amarillo is too far north. Agree the drive through Santa Fe/Pagosa is much more scenic.

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Disagree - both the northern route to FW and Amarillo and over and the route of 84 through Lubbock are both very equivalent. I've done both over the decades a hundred times.

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It's a beating either way but I love the gradual shift from flat farming to mesas, seeing Capulin, antelope, then you make that one turn and crest on the "safety corridor" and boom! Snow capped mountains of Sange De Cristo.

It's mostly nostalgic to me but to see the wahatoyas and then Blanca peak down into the San Luis then climbing into the San Juans is quite a drive.

I mostly dislike New Mexico because the roads generally suck and the towns have awful gas stations. The new Toot n totum Valero in Clayton keeps our stops in NM to a minimum.

Charismatic Megafauna said:

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I hope you guys get speeding tickets next time you drive through the land of enchantment

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What the heck is a safety zone anyways

It's where you can't drive 85-90 anymore in wide open 4 lane divided road with double shoulder and instead must drive 75 with cruise on.

ChoppinDs40 said:

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Tecolote said:

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maroonblood90 said:

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I have traveled these routes many times. Agree that NM sucks and Lubbock is a much better layover spot. Amarillo is too far north. Agree the drive through Santa Fe/Pagosa is much more scenic.

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Disagree - both the northern route to FW and Amarillo and over and the route of 84 through Lubbock are both very equivalent. I've done both over the decades a hundred times.

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It's a beating either way but I love the gradual shift from flat farming to mesas, seeing Capulin, antelope, then you make that one turn and crest on the "safety corridor" and boom! Snow capped mountains of Sange De Cristo.

It's mostly nostalgic to me but to see the wahatoyas and then Blanca peak down into the San Luis then climbing into the San Juans is quite a drive.

I mostly dislike New Mexico because the roads generally suck and the towns have awful gas stations. The new Toot n totum Valero in Clayton keeps our stops in NM to a minimum.

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Absolutely. Roads are mostly crap. And their best, newest, gas station chain, Maverick, is like QuickTrips of 1996. Although there is a Speedway old crappy gas station in the middle of nowhere that makes a mouth watering green chile carne adovada burrito..

ChoppinDs40 said:

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It's where you can't drive 85-90 anymore in wide open 4 lane divided road with double shoulder and instead must drive 75 with cruise on.

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I drive 81-82 and been good (maybe lucky). Between Albuquerque and Santa Fe you can easily do 85-88 as long as you're moving with traffic. NM State Police are a.-holes - 83 and over (75 zone) and it's risky. Most states are at the minimum 10+ but NM is 6-7+ max.

Coming home Saturday was my most efficient trip to date, very minimal stopping.

$1 off per gallon gas at King Soopers in Co Springs
New Toot'n' Totum in Bushland (NW Amarillo), with coffee shop just down the road
Rest Stop in Quanah to pee
$1 off per gallon gas at Kroger just NW of Fort Worth

And in the pueblos the tickets don't get reported to insurance, the state, anything! Pay it and rock on! The first one I got I asked the tribal police if I could just pay him directly, like Mexico

10andBOUNCE said:

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Coming home Saturday was my most efficient trip to date, very minimal stopping.

$1 off per gallon gas at King Soopers in Co Springs
New Toot'n' Totum in Bushland (NW Amarillo), with coffee shop just down the road
Rest Stop in Quanah to pee
$1 off per gallon gas at Kroger just NW of Fort Worth

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Nice!

I have my gas station stops pre-mapped in Google for our RV trips. lol

Quanah, Amarillo, Clayton, walsenburg and beyond.

Thinking of getting a bigger gas tank on the truck to really open up my options.

Back to skiing…

Had a good 2 days skiing this last weekend.

6yr old had successful, relatively, 1day ski school and then we skied a day until about 1pm.

She can't go all day - legs get too tired.

She can turn now but doesn't quite understand skiing ACROSS the slope yet. She thinks turning is just to turn down the mountain vs turn to go across and slow down.

How do I better work on this with her? I saw an instructor setting up poles like gates to get kids to go around them. This is a good idea.

I try to ski real slow and do big wide turns and get her to follow me. However, when I turn, and she's 20' behind me, she just points right at me rather than following my track and turning.

Are there some sticks I can pack and set up? Almost like alignment sticks in golf? Thinking of doing like 3 or 4 to make some big turns and get her to focus on connecting multiple turns and fall lines.

She wants to do more runs but like most kids, resort to pizza on anything steep and can't handle any sort of prolonged steepness and legs give out.

More ski school. Peer pressure is wonderful

Charismatic Megafauna said:

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More ski school. Peer pressure is wonderful

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Maybe. Mine is wired a different way unfortunately. If she see other kids doing stuff she can't do, it actually tends to make her give up. Or just cheer them on. She just isn't that competitive. She's still young but and we'll let her do what she enjoys but competitive sports isn't her thing. Soccer, tee ball, basketball, tennis. Just doesn't really drive her.

She's more goal oriented. Like - do this 4 times. Or we're going to do this run, then go here then do this.

We've got her doing golf lessons now and she tends to like it because she can work on her own craft rather than being on a field with other kids trying to mess with her ball.

Anyways. We'll keep doing lessons but I can't afford 4 days of lessons every trip. Will have to keep doing some myself.

As someone who never took lessons (I'm thinking of doing some advanced ones next time we take a longer trip), and had my dad teach me, I'm somewhat hellbent on being able to see her progress naturally in front of her and my wife.

Ok once my 4 year old started skiing independently (she was 3 then) my wife and I would ski down opposite sides of mellow greens just a bit ahead of her and have my daughter ski back and forth to each of us and give us high fives. Can't do that on crowded runs but it did a lot for her turning and independence.

Keeping skis together was our big emphasis last week for my 11yo. He can ski basically anything on the mountain but he defaults to wedging too much. I don't know how he doesn't get tired doing this, but he doesn't. I tried having him spray snow using short and quick turns for speed control. We also worked on stopping at each SLOW sign. He struggles more on groomers than he does on steep moguls or tree runs, probably because it's easier to wedge your way down. I may have him look at some videos and such to prepare for next time out. He loves it, so at a certain point, who cares, but it will be limiting to him in the long run.

10andBOUNCE said:

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Keeping skis together was our big emphasis last week for my 11yo. He can ski basically anything on the mountain but he defaults to wedging too much. I don't know how he doesn't get tired doing this, but he doesn't. I tried having him spray snow using short and quick turns for speed control. We also worked on stopping at each SLOW sign. He struggles more on groomers than he does on steep moguls or tree runs, probably because it's easier to wedge your way down. I may have him look at some videos and such to prepare for next time out. He loves it, so at a certain point, who cares, but it will be limiting to him in the long run.

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Competitive skier in my youth and easily over a year and a half of my life on skis . Keeping skis together "all the time" is overboard. I don't know how you define "wedging" - if it is a fixed snowplow that's obviously overboard. But, on lots of terrain a dynamic wedge is a truly great system. By that I mean one ski goes out and sets the line while the other "wedge" ski drags to control speed and stability but is then drawn in for the finish carving. One size doesn't fit all.

Thanks for the feedback. I think dynamic wedging is a fair description and makes sense. It is typically his go to style when turning. I am self taught so I may not even know what I'm talking about it. It seems less efficient and doesn't "look" like traditional skiing / carving. Typically he has issues the most when there is a decent amount of powder, but even I struggle with that as it demands a bit different technique.

We're heading to Red River next weekend. Kids have non refundable lesson booked. How bad is it gonna be?

4" in WP overnight. We head there next Wednesday. Cant wait!

'03ag said:

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We're heading to Red River next weekend. Kids have non refundable lesson booked. How bad is it gonna be?

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Same boat. I am imagining under the snow makers will be like the nature documentary where the hippos, crocodiles and gasping fish all crowd into the last mud puddle of the African summer after all the other lakes and rivers have dried up.

If you aren't making a stop at one of the Taqueria Dalhart locations, you're doing it wrong.