Angelfire NM

Contributed by tom. 13 March 2008.

Having the Monarch season pass entitles us to three free days at Angelfire, NM. We found a few days to head down there before the spring break madness starts, and it was a great trip! We loved the ski area, and the $100/night rooms at the Angelfire Resort Hotel, which allows dogs and slope-side didn't hurt.

It's John's (aka RDY_2_Carve) home mountain, and unfortunately we weren't able to ride with him -- mid-week, he had to work. Hope we'll hook up with him next time. John gave us beta on good carving trails, which came in very handy!

Angelfire is a great cruising mountain. Meaning: if you're the 200cm stiff board rider that loves pointing it down the fall-line, Angelfire probably isn't for you. But if you like to play or are an A-styler, Angelfire provides tons of long and consistent trails for groovin' and cruisin'.

Front side

Being mid-March in the thaw-freeze cycle, the trails were on the icy side. I rode Jasper and Prospector, both nice long runs with a consistent pitch. A bit on the narrow side, with trees on both sides, it was fun ripping down them. There were hardly any other riders on those trails, so I could enjoy them all by myself. I also rode Bodacious, and the long cat track return to the base called Coming Home -- a cat track, but still fun.

Exhibition

Exhibition is the main trail visible from the base, great place for warm-up, and seemed somewhat steeper too. The Lift #2 lift was very very slow -- great place to rest :)

Chili Express lift

Back side

The back side is where we had the most fun. The Southwest Flier lift was pretty fast, and there are plenty of different groomers to get from the top to the bottom. Nice long trails, again consistent pitch, fun place to play around.

View from Southwest Flier lift

Some of my favourite groomers there were Hallelujah, Fat City, Fire Escape. Good width, nice mellow pitch, great cruising.

Sweet entrance to Hully Gully

Hully Gully wasn't groomed, but has an awesome entrance off the Highway cat track. The cat track goes left around a bend, and the top of Hully Gully is like a bowl, funneling down into a tighter trail ringed by trees. I took over a half dozen runs air-dropping in from the cat track, landing on my [regular] toe, and immediately throwing a huge toe-side up and down the side of the gully. Then three-four more tight turns, super fun trying to out-do the previous run and to make more turns in the same space. Wish I had brought the camera on the first day when it was sunny -- instead I had the camera on the second day, with flat light, blowing snow, couldn't see any tracks.

Hell's Bells

I didn't ride Hell's Bells, but if groomed it'd be a shorter version of Copper Gulch at Ajax. It looked like a lot of fun.. and if the snow had been softer I would have ventured there. But the snow was on the hard side both days, and I decided to spend my time cruising instead.

Bottom line

Great mountain, fun trails, very worth visiting! And starting next week, if you crave the steeps, plan on taking some time to ride at Taos Ski Valley which is nearby!