Pajarito Mountain Ski Area — Attraction in Four Corners States

Pajarito is a hidden gem that is satisfying both for families and expert skiers. For decades it was a private ski club and didn't advertise. It went fully open and commercial but has been on a shoestring budget and still doesn't advertise much. Travel time, It's not significantly different getting there from santa fe as the so-named "santa fe" ski area, and parking hassle of the latter is non-existant at pajarito. Expect no lift lines except on special days or the first of the day when the powder hounds line up before the lift turns. The lodge is family friendly. The lessons and rentals and beginner hill next to lodge are a great arrangement for beginners--and make it easy for divided ability groups to regroup during the day, or to keep a young one well-primed with hot chocolate. The hill is about 1000 feet. The lifts are not high speed but c'mon this 1000 feet so it's not that long up. Every lift has a green way down, but The rest of the terrain is tilted towards advanced slopes so other than the beginner hill itself the green marked slopes would lean towards blues or maybe aquamarine green at most other ski areas. But there's always an easy cat track for those that get in over their head. They restrain the grooming on the blacks or leave half the slope ungroomed so the it's such a pleasure and gets great bump runs. There are so few skiers it takes many days with no snow to get skied out and the conditions remain fairly soft not icy. The base prep is usually excellent and they can stay open with good coverage at just 2 feet of snow though at that level early in the season some runs have tree shoots. Since it's on a different side of the riogrande valley the storms that hit this area are not in sync with the ones that hit sipapu, taos or santa fe, so check the weather when deciding. Locals know of lots of secret tree skiing, though recent windstorms are restricting that for now. The terrain is very boarder friendly with only one tricky traverse and few gravity traps for the knuckle dragging crowd. The terrain parks are not always open and aren't as spectacular as other resorts but they have two at different levels of difficulty. The food and pass prices are relatively cheap for a ski area and there's never a long walk from your car so bringing your own food is an option. You can have a picnic on the deck and upstairs in the lodge is a slightly quieter place you can corral toddlers away from the bustling crowds inside or your non skiing spouse can chill in a warm spot with a view and a book. On powder days you can you say find freshies along the edge of runs all day long due to the lighter traffic. For my money as an expert skier the only superior terrain is Taos. (Sure santa fe can be nice but the skied out expert runs get painfully hardpacked and the glades are luge runs. Sipapu and angel fire and red river are boring by comparison. Only Sipapu rivals parjarito in family friendliness and ease of regrouping a split up group during the day.) At special events beer is served but when There's no not locals usually bring their own and drink and eat on the deck. There's free groomed cross country trails adjacent to the ski area that use the same parking lot. The town isn't resort oriented and so the restaurants are quite cheap. Downtown, There's three dedicated brewpubs and one cocktail lounge in addition to the American legion and VFW clubs. Restaurants with alcohol include the Blue window and Origami sushi restaurant. There's also a bar and restaurant at the golf course which is not in the main commercial district and usually is more comfortable and quiet. And even further off the path is Pig and Fig in the whiterock suburb. Two brewpubs are not in the main avenue so you need to google to find them. I note the "townsight" lift and runs were extensively damaged in forest fire and are rarely, some years never, open for skiing. So if you see that not all the lifts are operational this is not a reflection on the snow...

Nice and cheap ski resort meant for people learning how to ski or snowboard. They offer ski and snowboard rentals as well as snow gear rentals as well. Tickets have to be bought online and are activated at the desk. The same is for the food at the cafe they have. Food at the cafe is ready in 30 minutes or less. The food can be ordered at the cafe front area or online. There are no microwaves at the cafe. When the ski resort is busy, the people at the cafe will open the floor right above the cafe seating area.

Since this year was La Niña, only 3 lifts (including magic carpet) were open and the snow was rather icy. When the afternoon came, the snow was icy in the shaded areas and was ok where there was sun, but due to many people skiing in the same area, there were many icy patches, and many people fell over those. Beginner is best for skiers and snowboarders learning for the first time, but the magic carpet - or as they call the surface lift - is best for first timers. They also offer lessons, but with observation (this needs to be confirmed) there were only ski lessons that happened by far.

The parking area is a one way road where a person heads down and gets out from the overflow parking area. DO NOT HEAD OUT THE WAY YOU CAME. Also MAKE SURE TO GO AT A LOW SPEED. Cars may be coming out of the parking and the view from the backwards or from the front is limited. If the main parking is full, head for the overflow parking, which can be accessed by driving through the main parking then going around. The overflow parking isn’t paved so be careful as some areas may be icy or covered in snow. The road that leads up to the ski resort may also be icy at times, so be careful since the car or a different four-wheeled vehicle starts sliding backwards due to the steep incline/decline (depending on which direction you are going) that may be...

EDIT to respond to the owner: there was no stack of tickets available as was promised in the email. No signage and no helpful people to point us in the right direction. We all stood in that line. As for the difficulty ordering lunch, I had 4 bars of LTE so I wasn't using their wifi. The ordering system simply didn't work. Now if I had the fallback option to place my order with a real person....

My favorite local mountain to ski on a powder day. Relatively undiscovered and a good variety of terrain. But management is bad and getting worse. As with most big companies these days, they choose to decry the lack of workers and force everything to be done online. You have to order your ticket online, and you have to order your lunch online.

The problem is, neither of these systems work. You order your ticket online, then you have to wait in a line anyway with everyone else to get your physical ticket. This line took just over 30 minutes to get through on a Friday. There are 3 ticketing windows! Only one is staffed.

Come lunchtime, I was unable to order food from the café. The website just wouldn't take any credit card I put in. And others around me were having the same issue. After noting that the website was estimating 45 minutes to get a burger and fries, we gave up figuring the system was just simply overloaded.

Meanwhile, there appear to be plenty of staff. And they're all very nice and accommodating. Clearly this is a management issue. I've skied her since I was a kid, and the current state of the mountain is unacceptable...