[d_shorb]

Or whats the steepest one you have skied?

I havent skied in New Mexico except at Toas.

[scotthsu]

there's stuff at Taos inbounds that's sustained at 50+, but in the bc, the steepest i've skied is probably a NE facing couloir dropping off the point that lies between Lake Fork and Kachina Peaks. I don't remember measuring the angle, but it's pretty steep as you can see from the pic.

we dropped in off the lip in the background:


there's another very narrow couloir at the very east end of the same ridge that's on my list. you can see this couloir from the bottom of lift #4 at TSV. I'll measure the angle if/when I ski it!

[d_shorb]

[scotthsu]

[Bob]

Santa Fe Baldy has some steep shots on it as well:




There are a number of steep places in the Williams Lake basin near Taos and off of Deception Peak and Lake Peak near Santa Fe. And the Truchas Peaks is a little-skied area with some potential for steep.

Information on who has skied what in NM is kind of vague because of the small size of the bc skier community. The two other guys that formed this site - Matt and Mark - and I have skied a peak near Gold Hill that had a number of great chutes, but we've never heard of anyone else skiing it. We called it Mary's Chutes:




Not the steepest, just used to illustrate the low amount of bc use around northern NM.

[Matt]

The steepest continuous lines that I know get skied are the east bowls of SF Baldy. But even then, the max angle of 50-55 degrees is short lived before mellowing out to 45 or so.

The classic steep backcountry line in NM is the N-NE face of Lake Fork in the Williams Lake Basin. Steep, but not super steep, with good continuous vertical pitch.

There are a number of short steep pitches in the Williams Lake Basin (Ohio Chute, Scott's example above, some lines between Wheeler and "sin nombre") that go 45-50 degrees, but generally less then ~300-400 vert feet or so before mellowing out to 40 or so. Same can be said for the Nambe Lake Basin in some of the less skied lines.

Probably the hariest face that I know of is the NE face of Vallecito. A nice triangluar snowfield over a high consequences cliff band. In a good snow year there looks to be a way through, although very sketchy. It was always on my list, but conditions, time, and ambition never aligned.

There are some other lines I've scoped in th Pecos, but they probably don't exceed anything discussed here.

The geology package for very steep continuous lines just doesn't exist in NM. Better to drive up north of Durango for continuous 45-50+ degree lines.[/img]
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[scotthsu]

[d_shorb]

[scotthsu]

[Matt]

Here's the best pic of Vallecito I know of. (courtesy of twh on teletips who skied the shoulder a couple of years ago).


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[scotthsu]