Sipapu skiing

For my birthday, I wanted to treat my family to a day of skiing. Ry has never been. Jack had a day's worth of ski school in Santa Fe a few years back. Jackson remembers that Ariel came with us to Santa Fe that time. Cyndi used to ski all the time, before we met, but it's been years since the last time. In fact, we were trying to remember if we'd ever skied a run together.

Our first ski trip together was Santa Fe, the day after our wedding. We stayed at the Bishop's Lodge and joined family and friends on the slopes for the day. Cyndi had managed to get about 20 ski passes for everyone. Cyndi didn't ski that day.

When Ariel was young, she and I went to Sipapu for two days to ski. The first day, Ariel struggled to learn with a ski instructor. In the afternoon, we skied together. She had the flying wedge down and to stop herself she either just fell down, safely, gracefully, in her pink snowsuit or steered herself uphill. We stayed overnight there, in a very uncomfortable apartment, and I vowed never to stay there overnight again. The second morning, Ariel didn't want to take lessons again but she did. She ended up having a private lesson with a young guy. She progressed to taking the chair lift up to the top of the mountain. The rest of the day she led me up and down the mountain.

I remember we must have made other day trips to Sipapu, as well as to Sandia and Santa Fe. I remember stopping once with her at Rancho de Chimayo for dinner on a return, and the Zia Diner was a favorite stop on other returns. We spent those days together, riding the lifts in the sun or in the cold wind, sharing an orange or a candy bar (a Snickers or a Baby Ruth) on the chairlift, talking, and then she'd lead me down all the black diamonds she could find. I would hang back, watching her as she slithered easily through the moguls. Then it was my turn to get through them, the moguls pounding back onto my knees as I tried to thread my long skis over them. She'd just laugh at all the names of those runs.

I have mentioned this to Cyndi, knowing those moments are among the best to share with a child. She has often said how much she wants to ski with our boys until she's 90 and to watch them grow up skiing. If we could, we'd be skiing every chance we could find.

For this birthday ski trip, I pulled together some Christmas and birthday gifts. We elected Sipapu because it's about half the price of anywhere else. It would be a day trip, no overnights, and we could also use a state-wide discount program available for children during the month of January.

Sipapu is a small lodge near Tres Ritos between Taos and Mora, which is northwest of Las Vegas, New Mexico. To get there, you drive up to Santa Fe, take the relief route if you don't forget to turn off, and then take the High Road to Taos from Nambe, through Chimayo, until you reach the fork after Penasco and Vadito, where you turn right instead of left to Taos. In all, an unhurried 2 1/2 hours. Driving to the Santa Fe Ski Basin takes about two hours, by comparison: an hour to Santa Fe and another hour to get up the mountain from the plaza. The High Road is a spectacularly beautiful drive, through valleys and forests, past adobe churches, the road winding though small rural villages and towns along the way, with vast vistas of mesas and snow-capped peaks.

We left before six on Sunday morning, the car packed the night before. The day before we gathered our things, borrowed a few gloves and snow pants, found some children's goggles on clearance sale, put gas in the car, and changed the oil. Before leaving, Cyndi made turkey sandwiches and a pot of coffee. There was yogurt and other food for the trip.

The boys were very excited. I heard that Ry announced the trip to his kindergarten class the Friday before. They brought some Legos, of course. Jackson likes these trips that begin in the morning before dawn.

We went past the santuario in Chimayo as it was beginning to become light. There were almost no other cars on the road. Jack was feeling a little car sick, so we let him sit in his booster in the front seat, and I tried, unsuccessfully, to engage him in all sorts of conversation to get his mind off his troubling stomach. He still didn't feel good. We talked about Hawaii, since he's doing a school project on that state.

We arrived at Sipapu around 8:30 and parked right in front of the main door to the lodge. There was almost no one else there. It took a while to get everything situated but we managed to purchase our lift tickets, sign up for lessons, get all of our boots and skis and poles, and store the rest of our stuff back in the car before ski lessons began at 10 am. Cyndi helped the boys change into their snow clothes, while I ran back and forth for the rentals. Ry ate some sandwich before we ventured outside.

The lodge is rustic and funky. There's a general store as you enter. In the day room, there's a smokey stone fireplace, surrounded by benches and couches, where people change into their ski boots. There's an upstairs balcony inside the day room which leads to a small cafeteria and some small bathrooms. What few people were there when we arrived were eating syrupy pancakes and bacon and breakfast burritos upstairs.

The mountain itself is small, mostly beginner runs and wide intermediate slopes. An intermediate trail winds down from the top of the mountain to the base, and there are several expert chutes that fall from the trail. At the base is one triple chairlift to take you about midway up the mountain and one pommel, which must be about 50 years old, along the bunny hill. There's another double chairlift and another pommel further up the mountain, but the trails up there were narrow, rocky and bare. Cyndi knows how I didn't think those were any fun. On our first morning run together, while the boys were taking lessons, I ran into a few rocks and almost one tree. She has wondered a few times since then why I still have no sense of humor about that run.

Outside the day room are picnic tables, where we ate our second lunch. A grill was set up outside, featuring hot dogs and hamburgers (which smelled so much better than they really were) and cold bottles of beer. There were fire pits there, too, which were started as it cooled off just before the day ended. From the back of the lodge, you cross a bridge over a frozen river to the ski school bell, a chairlift, and the bunny hill. On this side of the river are half a dozen more picnic tables, where you can watch your toddlers ski and eat lunch in the sun. We camped out there a lot and had our first lunch break: the sandwiches Ry didn't eat in the morning, chocolate milk in a box, oranges, some lemonade I brought in a backpacking bottle, red vines, and fudge I bought at the general store. Later in the day, Ry took a nap on my lap as I sat on a picnic bench, while Jack was off by himself skiing the practice hill along the pommel and Cyndi was getting a few runs on her own.

Next to these picnic tables and the ski school area was a Magic Carpet, a rubberized moving sidewalk. Many toddlers, and not a few novice adults, duck-walked up to the Magic Carpet with their skis and were transported, standing on their skis, to the top of the slightest of hills. The run down couldn't have been more than 25 yards. Ry took his lesson here, where he quickly and confidently learned the snow plow and how to use the edges to turn through a slalom course of orange cones. He spent the entire day here, going up and down by himself dozens of time, while Cyndi or Jackson or I watched. Jackson, meanwhile, graduated to the pommel and the practice hill and would join Cyndi or me there on our runs. He was anxious to be with one of us on the hill and wanted to take the chairlift up with us, too. But I hesitated, thinking he needed one more day. So he'd take the pommel up, often by himself but sometimes with Cyndi or me, and then traverse over to the practice hill, where he'd do a few turns and then shoot down "like a bullet" to the bottom.

The day couldn't have been much better. It was sunny all day. Around midafternoon a slight breeze would kick up now and then to remind you to put your gloves and your hat back on. It was warm, and the boys never needed a good middle layer and quickly enough they shed their jackets and often their caps. The mountain could have used a lot more snow, and I'm sure much of what was there was man made. The slopes were icy. I got to see Cyndi take off over the lip of a side trail, where I swear I saw air between the snow and her skis. She landed on a sweet patch of ice, fell on her bottom, slid a little, and then just popped right back up. She stopped, laughed, and said, "That's going to hurt tonight!"

We were in luck, too, because it was a perfect time to go. Weather-wise, a big winter storm was forecasted to begin Monday state-wide, and sure enough it is cold and snowing today. Schedule-wise, there's Super Bowl next weekend--very important to Cyndi for snacking and also sure to be a family gathering because all of the sisters somehow married midwesterners and Green Bay is in. And the next three weekends after that are filled with little league field preparation, an Explora museum overnight, and a Cub Scouts banquet. Other stuff, I'm sure.

Cyndi got several runs by herself in the afternoon, and was happy for it. I got the last run of the day, or so I thought. I took the chairlift up, past the glittering bead necklaces and hidden undergarments hanging from the high tree branches along the way. I made a quick run down. It felt good. The turns felt good. I ventured a little speed and then pulled back before getting into traffic. Did I mention there were never any lift lines? It never was crowded. Another reason to like the place. Mostly families, mostly local, a couple of youth groups, and some young military people up from Kirtland Air Force base in Albuquerque.

I got to the bottom. Jack and Ry and Cyndi were waiting for me, but I found out both Jack and Ry snuck in another run on their hills while I was gone. We quickly turned in the gear and changed into our shoes. Cyndi and I also changed our clothes in the bathrooms outside. By four we were on our way to Rancho de Chimayo, where we ordered beers and chips and salsa, the boys wolfed down whole bean and cheese burritos, Cyndi polished off her huevos rancheros, and I ate a chicken enchilada. We finished off the sopapillas with dabs of local honey. The drive home in the twilight was magical. Ry played with his Legos; Jack watched Shrek on the DVD player. Cyndi made a quick call to her mom and then must have meditated most of the way home. By 7:30 we were home. Cyndi got Jack into a hot bath while I unloaded the car. Ry played with his Legos. Sleep came quickly.