Visit Taos Ski Valley

06/19/2026

SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST

☀️🏞️🎁⛳️🥏🥅

Sun-Day! Summer solstice, Father’s Day, and the longest day of the year. With a fresh wave of openings in the Village, make the most of the last hours. Sun won’t set until 8:23pm!

FRIDAY: ARRIVE & SETTLE IN
🛏️ Check into Powderhorn 101, steps from the village. Two queens, a full kitchen, gas fireplace, and views of Al’s Run.

🛒 Stock the kitchenette at CID’s Mountain Market (Daily 10 am–5 pm) for groceries, grab-and-go items, and spirits.

🎶 Tonight: Catch the Taos Opera Institute singers at Edelweiss Lodge & Spa Courtyard (4-6pm 🆓) or head to Red Willow Park for ’s summer concert series kickoff.

SATURDAY: A WHOLE BACKSIDE DAY
☕ Morning: Start at Blonde Bear Café with a cappuccino, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and huevos rancheros, biscuits & sausage gravy, or fluffy pancakes drizzled with piñon syrup. Rent your wheels at Taos Sports and e-bike your way to Kachina Basin.

🚡 Midday: Park it at The Bavarian and hop aboard Lift 4 (10am–4:30pm) for a scenic ride above the alpine meadows, then boots in the ground with the wildflowers up Williams Lake Trail.

🍺 Afternoon: The Bavarian is the call. Brats for lunch, or an afternoon pint on the deck under Kachina Peak.

🌌 Night: Keep the party going with Dirtwire & The Floozies at 7pm.

SUNDAY: SOLSTICE + FATHER’S DAY
🌞 Morning: Catch sunrise and enjoy the most daylight of the year. Coffee first at Black Diamond Espresso.

⛳ Midday: Skip the gallery and play a round with Dad on TSV’s free 18-hole disc golf course. Tee #1 begins at Rueggli Lift. Borrow discs from the Chamber Visitor Chalet or rent them at Taos Sports.

⚽ Or cheer on Belgium vs. Iran at Daleee TSV (Thu–Sun, noon–7pm). Wear your jersey for $1 off. Pizza, burgers, a full bar, and big screens await.

🥃 Evening: If Dad’s a whiskey guy, Rolling Still Lounge pours Ponderosa Whiskey Co.’s handcrafted spirits made with Taos rye and glacial water from the Sangre de Cristos. Sample a pour at the lounge or take a bottle home.

Community Weekend, July 4 festivities, and a packed summer calendar are right around the corner.

06/18/2026

THE SHIRT IS HERE 👀 And more goodies are coming!

This year’s 20th annual race tee is a throwback that goes the distance! We put our favorite invitation front and center — the iconic Carson National Forest “Welcome to Taos Ski Valley” sign reimagined. Columbine blooms cropping up to anchor it, Kachina Peak’s prayer flags rising in the hills, and our favorite mountain mascot bighorn sheep rounds out the scene. 20 years to commemorate, and a shirt that wears like home does.

Race day ready ✅
🌸 Columbines
🌯 Burrito
🧢 Swag from our favorite sponsors
📞 Area code bib pride IFYKYK
🏆 Indestructible pint glass, your finisher’s medal

Show up, finish the course, earn your cred. Northern New Mexico essentials, forest friends, TSV legends. This is what’s waiting in your race bag.

Huge thanks to , .gains, and all our sponsors making this year’s swag next level — so much more from this year’s prizes coming soon from , and more! 👀

📅 August 1-2 2026
🔗 Link in bio to register

#575

06/17/2026

To every season, there is a shift

🌙🌌💐

Every day in the high desert and alpine extremes brings a new way to notice nature’s moves — sky to ground, day to night, big and small. With solstice landing this Sunday, here’s how we are soaking it all in this week:

🌌 Peak Milky Way season is nearing — a recent new moon means extra-dark skies right now, and we’re heading into the best viewing window of the year. By mid-to-late June, the galactic core rises right after sunset and stays up all night, visible early and for hours in a row. Step outside after dark and look up!

🪐 Last chance to catch the Planet Party tonight! We did last night. Low-light conditions mean Jupiter, Venus and Mercury are popping against a thin crescent Moon low in the western sky around 9pm. Just use your eyeballs! No telescope needed.

🐝 Make a beeline for Rio Fernando Park for pollinator central and a stroll! Bursting purple thistles at the Taos Land Trust are drawing in a surprising mix, feathered friends included. You won’t necessarily find the classic honeybee (which isn’t even native to North America and was brought over by European settlers) but lesser known species like this orange-tipped visitor work the same thistles. Unlike honeybees, this leafcutter bee (genus Megachile) doesn’t live in a hive — she nests alone in pre-existing holes and tunnels, lined with neatly cut leaf pieces. All you need to bring is your curiosity and the handy app to explore.

🌸 Wildflower mayhem is popping on Williams Lake Trail thanks to the recent precipitation! Classic blue columbines always steal the spotlight, but look closer and you’ll spot their quieter co-star: Polemonium pulcherrimum, or Jacob’s-ladder, tucked into the rock and talus along the trail. Subtler in color, just as striking up close.

☀️ The longest days of the year are almost here — Sunday’s solstice means max daylight, max time outside. (We’ve got a whole guide to making the most of it coming Friday 👀)

06/16/2026

PUMPED UP 🚵

The sky just dumped, and we just dropped a full guide to mountain biking at TSV and across the Taos landscape — from your first lift-served lap to a full-day backcountry epic.

Taos Bike Park is about to be in full spin for downhill on June 27, but the trails are already riding dirty tacky perfect. Consider this your warm up!👇

🗺️ Out in the Wild
The Taos MTB landscape stretches well beyond the bike park. Lost Lake Trail is a challenging 13.7-mile backcountry loop with 2,300+ feet of gain and big alpine reward. Horsethief Canyon delivers technical rock gardens and fast descents through piñon and ponderosa. The Rift Valley & Slide Trail offers flowy, uncrowded singletrack with views 400 feet down to the Rio Pueblo and Rio Grande gorges. And South Boundary Trail — 22 miles point-to-point through Carson National Forest — is a true bucket list ride for the Southwest.

🚵 At the Bike Park
Lift 4 tops out at 11,400 feet with a trail network built for every level. Green Chile Flow Trail for first-timers and kids. Grip It & Rip It for intermediates ready to commit. Shrapnel for riders who know their limits and push them. Plus a free Skills Park behind The Bavarian for the young rippers, and Pioneer Flow Trails at the base to warm up or wind down. Rentals, gear, food, and cold drinks all on-site.

The mountain quenched its thirst yesterday, now it’s your turn. Hydrate, pace yourself, and ride the mud wave while it lasts. It’s all downhill from here!

Full trail guide, difficulty ratings, bike shop info, and trail maps at 🔗 in Story.

06/15/2026

AFTER GLOW

🎆⚡️🌅

115,000 volts. One canyon. One sky approaching the new moon 🌑

The Rio Grande Gorge doesn’t stop for much but figured out how to cross it anyway. These transmission lines carry power west to east into Taos, strung across one of the deepest gorges in North America, humming through the night while the Milky Way wheels overhead.

Those pulsing purple halos at the tower tops are corona discharge, what happens when high voltage meets thin high-desert air. The electric field around the conductors becomes so intense it ionizes the atmosphere itself, stripping electrons from air molecules and turning them into glowing plasma hotter than the surface of the sun. Same physics as a neon sign. Same glow as St. Elmo’s fire on a ship mast in a storm.

Here at nearly 7,000’, it burns brighter than at lower elevation. Charged particles move more freely in atmosphere at altitude, and the corona ignites more easily. What you’re seeing is physics more visible here than almost anywhere else an identical line could run.

A little energy bleeding off as light, heat, and ozone is an intentional trade off: high voltage dramatically reduces the resistive losses that would otherwise eat up power on a long run. The glow is the cost of crossing a canyon cleanly.

By the time the sun clears the Sangre de Cristos, the story shifts. Taos runs on 100% daytime solar, locally generated and stored. The lines that glowed all night hand off to the sun. The gorge at dawn is a different kind of power.

KCEC has been powering northern New Mexico since 1944. Right now they’re building a battery microgrid right here in the Village of Taos Ski Valley, part of a wildfire resilience push to keep the mountain powered through extreme weather and preemptive shutdowns. Member-owned, locally rooted, quietly remarkable.

The gorge glows back, then the sun takes over.

📷:
9:43pm–3:43am, June 12–13: Mission 1 (star trails), A1 and a7R III (timelapse).
🚁: Air 3S + RC2 Controller
🎤: MKH 416

06/11/2026

06/11/2026

Light Catchment

🌞😎☀️

Long days… are for day trips! While much of the country settles into summer heat, the high forests of the Sangre de Cristo and Jemez Mountains tell a different story. Thanks to for shining a light on what makes special including the eyes that help us see it more clearly… like of ! As the inaugural SEED Award recipient puts it, “Cool mornings, shaded canyons, ponderosa forests carrying that vanilla-butterscotch warmth… summer here feels less like an arrival and more like an invitation.” This month they’ve set the table so you can bask in the light of the experience a little deeper. Here are some of their brightest ideas!

🏛️ Guided exploration of Bandelier and Tsankawi
Cliff dwellings, worn pathways, and petroglyphs tell the story of ancestral communities who read the sky the way we read a calendar. Gather around a lunch spread adorned with enamelware inspired by traditional camp gatherings, handcrafted touches, lantern light, carefully selected provisions, and storytelling woven into every element, including pieces inspired by Fajada Butte’s solstice shine at Chaco Canyon.

🏜️ June is the last window for the Chaco Canyon day tours before pausing for the season until fall. The same light that fell through those great house doorways a thousand years ago falls there still, so don’t miss it!

🍷 End one of our last high desert spring days making a new kind of splash along the Rio Grande. The Wineries & Art Tour drops you into the heart of NM wine country to meet the makers and follow their stories to the root of a lesser known tradition. Canyon walls catch the afternoon light, the river shimmers below, and somewhere between the vines and the pour you’ll discover how grapes grown in this unique landscape are shaped by time itself, right there in the bottle. Long legs, lingering light. Savor bright eyed and bushy tailed before summer arrives.

🏡 Taos locals, 50% off your first tour through June 30 with code TAOSLOCAL. Your backyard never looked so good.

See 🔗 in Story to book a solstice adventure!

06/09/2026

A tree is our most intimate contact with nature.

George Nakashima

🏜️🪾🌕

She was a landmark for all seasons, and the rio road to Taos lost one of its most recognized and beloved trailheads yesterday.

The Welcome Tree stood at the top of the Horseshoe Curve on Hwy 68 for years after she died — bare branches, big sky, Wheeler Peak behind her. Still the first thing you looked for coming home. Still the last thing you saw leaving.

Early June is actually peak wind season on the Taos plateau — and Monday’s gusts hit 50 to 60 mph in some areas, driven by virga, the desert phenomenon where rain evaporates before it ever reaches the ground and kicks up sudden, erratic winds in its wake.

Through her branches over the years, we saw it all — until the high desert wind carried her away. As the sun rises over the mesa today, the Taos Welcome Tree’s moon has set for the last time. There was always another time to photograph her until there wasn’t.

In tribute🙏🪦📷: (Full Moon Set Jan 26, 2024, Aurora Borealis May 10, 2024 and October 20, 2025); (Milky Way November 11, 2023)

06/08/2026

Below the sea of clouds lies eternity.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

🌅

Sunday, 8:30pm MDT, two main arteries lit up, NM-64 and Blueberry Hill Road, headlamps moving through the high desert dusk as the solstice nears and a new season lights up our valley.

From above, the mesa shifts fast and specific: ochre to burnt sienna to flat blue-grey in under ten minutes. From the ground you watch the sky change. Pilots know, up here you watch the land change.

🎥:
🚁: Air 3S
🎮: RC2 Controller
👁️: 24mm f/1.8 + 70mm f/2.8 + 8 stop ND

06/05/2026

Summer: Now Booking!

✈️🌄

Weekends are for fun. Summer is for vacation!

Hiking season is on in Taos Ski Valley — trails are cool, and it’s the perfect warm-up for everything summer that’s about to drop! From dipping into the annual July 4th duck river races in the Rio Hondo to scaling a different kind of Kachina high via the via ferrata, summer season is dialed in and ready to rock — with lift-served mountain biking, UTV tours, and disc golf in the high alpine.

Getting here just got easier. Just Fly Taos, Fly!

Flights are now live and bookable:

JSX (June 29–Sept 28)
Dallas | Austin

Contour Airlines (June 28–Sept 28)
Direct Taos–Denver | Thursdays, Sundays & Mondays

The Blake at Taos Ski Valley is open — complimentary airport transfers waiting for guests arriving on JSX or Contour flights.

Start with a hike now — then come back for the full summer lineup, or just stay awhile.

Locals fly JSX for up to 20% off with code tsmlocal at checkout. Book now: FlyTaos.com. You can use the discount flying from Taos on Thursday and flying to Taos on Monday. Code not active Saturdays 🤠