City: Los Alamos, NM

Category: Parks & Recreation

Telephone: (505) 662-5725 (office)

Description: The nonprofit tax-exempt Los Alamos Ski Club, a venerable and enthusiastic group of men and women, runs the Pajarito Ski Area. The club began in the late 1950s to enliven the winter for the scientists and GIs working on the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, a beautiful, isolated spot in the Jémez Mountains. The club moved from an earlier site in search of better snow and came to Pajarito Mountain in the early 1960s. Volunteers cleared trees for the runs, built a cozy lodge, and installed the first lift. Today, volunteers still play a key role here, and the ski area is known for having the only completely volunteer ski patrol in the state.The club now has more than 4,000 members who elect a board of directors that hires the general manager and other paid staff. To be a member you must live or work in Los Alamos, but to ski here you just need the price of a ticket. The area is not a resort, but a ski hill. You won’t find overnight accommodations, valet parking, ski shuttles, hot tubs, massages, day care, or après-ski activities here—or even a beer to go with your lunch at the Pajarito Mountain Cafe. You will discover a challenging mountain with enough cruiser runs to keep intermediates and beginners happy, too. Perched on a ridge above Los Alamos National Laboratory, the area receives an average snowfall of 250 inches. There’s no snowmaking equipment here. Since the area depends totally on the natural stuff, Pajarito is usually among the last of New Mexico’s ski areas to open, normally getting sufficient snow by mid-December. Pajarito usually closes some time in April. The lifts operate only on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and federal holidays except Christmas Day.The mountain has a peak elevation of 10,441 feet, a vertical drop of 1,400 feet, and 40 trails, of which 80 percent are rated either “intermediate” or “advanced.” Pajarito’s skiers ride their choice of seven lifts—three doubles, a triple, a quad, and two surface—to the mountaintop. The views are wonderful. From the top of the Aspen chairlift, skiers can see part of the Valle Grande, a huge volcanic crater that now forms an expansive valley. The lifts can accommodate 6,500 skiers per hour, but don’t except to see that kind of crowd except, perhaps, during Christmas vacation.The area’s cafeteria and ski school occupy a 13,000-square-foot lodge, and the ski patrol office is nearby in a separate building. Pajarito is one of the few mountains that still uses an all-volunteer ski patrol.You can get lessons in telemark skiing, cross-country skiing, and snowboarding as well as alpine skiing here. The area has private lessons and group classes for children and adults. On Wednesday you’ll find lots of children here taking advantage of the area’s classes for school groups from Española, Pojoaque, and the Jémez Valley. Los Alamos Ski Racing Club operates a youth racing program. Challenge New Mexico uses Pajarito to introduce disabled children and adults to the world of skiing. The area does not offer an inclusive children’s ski school package, but lessons for children are available. Please check with the area for updated prices. Seniors age 75 and older and skiers age six and younger ski for free.