Adventorous journey of New Mexico- Day4

Heaven on Earth- Santa Fe Mountains

29th Dec 2006:- This was my best day of the tour. we got up very early this morning and switched on the TV to listen news. They said its snowing heavily all over Santa Fe and lots of higways and roads are closed. We were disappointed to know that but we dint gave up. We said we will still go to the mountains for ski. As soon as we came of the room we saw our SUV covered fully with snow. How to get in the car and how to start it n wat to do where the questions in my mind. Took a big brush from the receptionist and cleaned the front side window and the windshield and got in the car, started the car and strted the anti-fog heater. Came out and cleaned the snow from all the windows. Voww this was a unique experience alltogether. Then we had bfast at the Dennies. Ohh man, everything was covered with white snow. This was the day for new mexico record snowfall. Later this day we came to know that it had 18" of snowfall in santa fe.

After b'fast, sid started driving and me on the front passenger seat all set for photo sessions. First we saw the beautifull houses on the way. It was extremely gerorgeous. Snowing mildly and it was great scene to see. Its hard to find such scenes and with camera in my hand i took some of the most exciting and mindblowing pictures. We were amazed by the looks of the mountains and the trees. just a day back everything was green and beautiful. Today everything has turned to white but it was much more beautifull then the other day. Vow, two different kind of beauty for same site. Xmas trees were all covered with heavy snow with forming different shapes, then you see the curved roads, then you see the snowy mountains. This mixture of beauty was perfect for anyone to fall in love with nature. I again saluted nature for creating such distinct change in weather beautiness. At one curve there was a picnic area. we stopped our SUV and tooked lots of pictures here. This was the most interesting spot haha. I shud mention this event. we had parked our SUV just next to a pick-up truck. As i got down from our SUV i saw this guy n gal having fun in the middle of the mountain. haha they were of no shy and sharam they were making love without any concern of anyone haha. That was interesting. We left the scene so that they can continue more :) and now headed towards mountain. We reached there at around 10am. Rented the ski gear. Today it was not difficult to wear the boots and the ski guy gaved me the intermidiate skiis. All set for the ski we first started with the auto ski lesson. Theres i spent an hour to learn my turns and especially i learnt how to stop and apply breaks appropriately. First tried without poles to get it controlled and then tried with poles so that i can speed a bit. It was nice self learning lessons. I watched other experts and learned myslf. Though was not perfect yet.

Now its time to go at higher levels haha. I bought the lift tkts and stood in queue for Lift 4. I thought this lift will halt at midlevel mountain so took this lift but wen i sat and it took off and it took me all the way to the top of the mountain. man now thats scarry. I am not even in begineers level and i have came to the top of the mountain. There i reached the top and unboarded the lift and as soon as i unboarded i felt down haha. Thats how it hapens wen u take lift for the first time. I reassembled my ski gears and got it ready. I was relaxed wen i saw the boards at top of hill that they have 4 routes that goes down. One is Blue:- Steep down, second Blue mid:- steep and fat for intermidiate skiiers and other two were green thats for the begineers. i took the green beginers route. First step was a not-so steep slope but pretty much steep for me haha. With much reluctant i jumped and skiied and then i felt down haha. That was fun. I was all dressed up with ski jacket , gloves, neck/nose protector and warm cap. my glasses were getting fogged and cos of that i cudnt c. So kept it in my pocket. Next was flat route. i njoyed this section as it was flat for 5-10 minutes. then cam the steep curbes. Man how do i go now haha. I pushed my poles and headed and then again got out of controll and fell down on back on purpose. Thats the trick i learned. if u r out of controll just fell down on ur back n u will be fine. I felt down so many times. N finally i learnt how to quickly get up with ski wearing on snow. this was fun. One expert also taught me how to stand firmly with ski on slopes. That was realy helpfull man. Then after lots of efforts i reached the midlevel. Vowww it look lot of time. I fell down many times but i njoyed. Lessin learnt is:- "In life no matter how many times u go down or met with no sucess, u shud try to get up and take try again n again and try to work on ur new goals very enthuly till u get the success". From the midlevel to the base i learnt how to controll speed, how to turn, how to apply brakes. I was now very much good enuf to ski. I came down at the base n saw the time. My god it took 1hr:30mins to reach down from the topmost peek of the mountain..Voooowwwww.

At the base, Sid, had already returned the gears and was taking photos. I was still in skii moode and told him i will go up again. this time i took Lift 2 which went to the mid level of the mountain. this time i unboarded properly and skii nicely. vow once u get to know how to ski as an beginers level u will njoy. After two more tries from the midlevel it was time to wrap up the ski gears as ski mountains closes at 4pm. It was snowing heavily. At the base we had some photos. I was very much exhausted. Returned back the ski gears and went to search our SUV as it snowed a lot and all cars were covered with heavy snow haha. We now started returning back to our hotel. Ohh man i shud admit ski has become my one of the fav sport now.

We had subway sandwitches for dinner and then slept for awhile at our hotel. Got up at 10pm and headed towards Albaqurque for partying. Ohh man we departed on the wrong day. It was nasty weather out there. Heavy snow and low visibility. This was the most adventorius drive we had. It was 60 minutes drive and was very interesting. Night time, low visibility, sleepery roads and tempt to drive fast haha made out drive very interesting. We reached Albuqurque (ohh man it took 4 days to pronounce this city name haha). We had been calling this city as Abbu-Turkey hahaha. Well wen we reached there we came to know that everything is closed cos of nasty weather. Ohh man. And to our ba luck our hogway back to santa fe was closed due to very heavy snowfall. It was 11:30pm . I called our fren there n then she said they can stay at her appartment. We were not sure and then we first went to the restau with our frens. I had spicy black bean burritos. Ohh Man, thruout Newmexico, u can get spicy green chilli chutney. Voww.

It was nice that our fren provided us the accomodation that night. she was with her aunt. It was nice to meet them. Next day early morning we returned back to santa fe. Read more about Day 5 in my next blog...

@ the base of santa fe ski mountains