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Earning Our Turns

Lift tickets are expensive. Hiking is not.

By Eric Carlson

"Call it an act of civil disobedience or mere delinquency. We were simply after cheap thrills."

It had been a while since I could afford a lift ticket. In fact, my skis had lain in my basement, dusty and unused, for nearly seven years, as I had grown jaded toward the ski industry and its extravagant, chummy ways. For winter recreation, I chose instead the more primitive and less expensive pursuit of snowshoeing, but I could still remember the bliss of skiing high alpine slopes, cold breeze in my face, grand views, and fresh powder.

So it was a few years back, amid a particularly severe winter, when my buddy Sean and I decided, after several beers, to climb the Santa Fe Ski Basin the following morning and take one gloriously free ride down, "poaching" as they say in the vernacular. Since neither one of us had skied in years, however, we were out of touch with the lexicon and unaware of the term at that time. Nonetheless, it had just snowed, and we needed some exercise and some clean mountain air.
One might assume that a "lift ticket" is just what its name implies, a ticket to ride the lifts. Since Ski Santa Fe, like most ski areas, sits on public land, how could the public be denied the right to simply pass through? What is commonly advertised as a "lift ticket" however, becomes, in fact, an "area-use ticket" when one inquires about hiking up without one. The Forest Service allows ski areas that lease National Forest land to put conditions on the use of that land, such as having a valid ticket. In most cases, including at Ski Santa Fe, you're not allowed in their boundaries without one. The only mountain in the Four Corners that explicitly allows people to hike and ski for free is Wolf Creek. Further away, Vail sanctions it as well.
The law did not concern us though, and since the $60 ticket was out of reach, neither of us had qualms about sneaking one harmless run. The land is leased from us after all. Call it an act of civil disobedience or mere delinquency. We were simply after cheap thrills.
Of course, ski areas have obvious safety concerns that entitle them to enact certain rules. For instance, all of the ski areas in the Four Corners either overtly prohibit or strongly discourage uphill traffic on their slopes (at Wolf Creek and Vail, uphill traffic must stay to the side). Sean and I did not want to cause any accidents, and the idea of defiantly hiking up a groomed slope among the multitudes of downhill skiers held no aesthetic appeal anyway. Therefore, we chose an ascending route up Raven's Ridge on the north side of the ski basin, outside its permitted boundaries.
We arrived at 8:30 in morning, the parking lot nearly empty, and the temperature well below freezing. Wearing snowshoes and carrying our skis and boots on our backs, we began to hike. Seasoned backcountry skiers would no doubt skin up with the latest free-heel technology, but we were amateurs and limited in our means.
To my apprehension, Sean also brought his dog, a Queensland Heeler named Blue, who proved to be at once commendably hardy and tremendously irritating. I doubted whether the poor thing could make it as the snow was literally over his head, but Blue was undeterred and lived up to his Heeler heritage, trailing immediately behind us all the way, stepping on the tails of our snowshoes constantly. It was maddening.
Raven's Ridge is a steep, forested spine leading to the ominously named Deception Peak at 12,200 feet. To the north, the ridge drops off sharply overlooking Nambe Lake, with magnificent views of Deception Peak, Santa Fe Baldy, and the Rio Grande valley. To the south, it descends more gradually toward the ski area a quarter mile away. Raven's Ridge is a strenuous hike in the summer, but in 6 feet of snow with loaded packs, it was daunting.
From our perspective, we might as well have been the protagonists in some great Nordic myth. While as physically fit as your average Inside/Outside Southwest reader, we could often take only a few steps at a time before pausing to catch our breath, inching our way upward, and it was cold. Having shed my outer shell during the climb, my shirt was frozen solid on my back when we finally stopped for lunch, but Blue, still cheerfully tagging along, seemed unfazed by either the climb or the temperature.
It was mid-afternoon at 12,000 feet, just above tree line, cloudy, frigid and wind blowing hard. The summit was in sight, seemingly a short way off, but I was skeptical. I've learned to question my judgment of distance in the mountains; things can be farther away than they seem, other times much closer, and this was Deception Peak after all. It appeared before us barren and wind swept, cold and forlorn, and to my tired mind, nearly unattainable.
"We're practically there," said Sean.
"Baloney!" I told him, actually using that word (it's funny how the bologna sausage became equated with nonsense, losing its original spelling along the way). My fatigue, combined with the piercing wind, may have been responsible for that bit of linguistic brilliance, but as it turned out, the top was just a few hundred yards away.
Upon cresting this portion of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, one is greeted with a magnificent view of the whole Pecos Valley to the east. A lush and fertile paradise in the summer, it lay before us buried deep in snow. After pausing to appreciate that jaw-dropping view, we continued south along the ridge to the ski area.
Emerging from the wilderness, we put our skis on and leapt forthright into the throng of weekend skiers. The shift from the quiet woods was a little jarring. Here we were exhausted, just arrived from the great, silent wilderness, covered in ice, packs on our backs and a faithful little dog beside us. I felt like a deer that wandered into the road, caught in the traffic of 1,000 well-dressed skiers and ornery young snowboarders.
Recently, a young lady working for the Durango Mountain Resort (where hiking is not allowed) said to me, "being an avid backcountry skier myself, I can't imagine why you would want to go to all that effort and then ski down groomed slopes with a bunch of Texans when you have all this pristine powder outside the ski area!" Well, again, we were amateurs. We had neither the equipment nor the training to attempt the backcountry, and we didn't want to die in an avalanche. We just wanted a taste of what the Texans were after, for free.
After getting our bearings, we chose a blue run and set forth. Compared to the long climb, the descent was over in an instant, but it was an instant of pure, childlike euphoria. Down we went, exuberant in the wind and the speed, and would you believe Sean's little dog was out there in front of us, trucking down that slope faster than you can imagine. As we neared the bottom, an irate ski patroller shouted, "Hey! That dog's gotta be on a leash!"
This was curious because while we knew bringing the dog was likely against the rules, it never occurred to us that skiing with a dog on a leash might be permissible, if even conceivable. We never turned our heads though, just sped on down, took off our skies and melted into the bustling milieu. Nobody paid us any further attention, and we returned to our car, now nestled among a hundred others that arrived later, their passengers still seeking abandon on the slopes. Our day on the mountain was done - that one, well-earned run held all the joy I needed for the day.
From this perspective, the people riding the lifts appeared conspicuously gluttonous in their use of colossal technology to try over and over again, run after run, to achieve that same thrill we did in just one. Thus, the modern ski industry is a poignant example of modern American consumerism, commodifying a once special, hard-to-attain thing, making it available to the masses and selling it to them in previously undreamed of quantities. In this sense, it is comparable to the modern food industry, bringing us fresh produce year round, inexpensive instant meals, and cheap, industrial beer.
There is a small minority who share this subversive view. For instance, many ski towns contain a minute but vigorous set of people who enjoy hiking and skiing after hours or in the early morning. Although most mountains explicitly prohibit this, a few actually tolerate it. Among those that allow it during off hours are Ski Santa Fe, Wolf Creek and Arizona Ski Bowl. Of course, this is done at one's own risk, and the risks of skiing at night are considerable. For instance, at least one man was left a paraplegic after colliding with a winch cable one night at the Durango Ski Resort, and Taos Ski Valley reports similar accidents. Furthermore, avalanche work poses obvious threats as well. To minimize the danger, Arizona Snowbowl marks the trails that are being groomed so nobody gets too close to a snowcat or winch cable at night.
Despite these risks, Shelley Robinson loves skiing Santa Fe's quiet, freshly groomed slopes by moonlight with her husband. "I'm earning my turns," she says. "It's nice to know you can hike up without being dependent on the lift, and it makes the skiing down experience that much more fulfilling."
Likewise, Kent Little, owner of Santa Fe's Sangre de Cristo Mountain Works, likes to hike and ski in the early hours before work. Often accompanied by his staff, he routinely encounters other groups doing the same, the "Dawn Patrols" as they call themselves. According to Little, they'll "get up at five o'clock in the morning, skin up, and watch the sunrise over the Pecos . . . Human-powered travel is incredibly rewarding, and it does provide the opportunity for people to get out and ski - who maybe don't want to or can't afford to pay for lift tickets." (Not only is Little willing to earn his turns while the rest of the world sleeps, he's also had the tenacity to keep his gear shop open despite REI moving in right across the street last year.)
Nevertheless, hiking up commercial ski areas, especially during the day, hasn't caught on en masse and probably never will. While many ski areas report ongoing problems with other forms of poaching such as skiing out of bounds or down closed trails, hiking and skiing down the groomed slopes just isn't very common. The heartiest skiers would rather head for the backcountry, and the rest seem content to ride the lifts. The concept of earning turns may not even be apparent to many casual skiers who simply associate skiing with lift service and don't question it, just as they don't question buying oranges in the winter.
When I interviewed the manager of one regional ski area, he was initially worried that I was promoting reckless behavior, skiing out of bounds or otherwise abusing the good folks running the mountains. The comparatively innocent act of hiking up and taking one harmless run during the day didn't really bother him though. "Our concerns are not people hiking up and skiing down our trails," he said. "The bottom line is, you probably don't even know they are. Do they look any different from someone who rode the lift?
"If somebody were to do it," he added, "maybe they'd deserve a beer."
As it was, we thought so too and ended our day at Santa Fe's own Second Street Brewery, makers of arguably the finest beer in the Rocky Mountains. Just as one well-earned run is better than a day's worth of lift-assisted runs, so are a few well-earned, well-made brews better than a case full of cheap, industrial beer.

Eric Carlson earns his turns from Santa Fe, N.M.