Tiny Museum—Big History

If you’ve ever taken a break at Ski Santa Fe’s Totemoff Bar & Grill or had a lesson from the Ernie Blake Snowsports School at Taos, you might wonder about the people behind the legendary names. A great place to learn about the pioneers who made skiing in New Mexico possible and to marvel at how far ski equipment has evolved is the New Mexico Ski Museum.

Located at the base of the Sandia Peak Tramway, the charming museum is free and open year-round. It opened in 2008 and was created to document the history and development of skiing in New Mexico. It is dedicated to Robert Nordhaus who developed the Sandia Peak Ski Area in the 1940s, and who, along with Ben Abruzzo, co-founded the Sandia Peak Tramway in 1966.

Ben Abruzzo (left) and Robert (Bob) Nordhaus were the primary forces behind the development of La Madera into today’s Sandia Peak. They are seen together here at the base of La Madera in 1962. Nordhaus was a New Mexico native, born and raised in the original Las Vegas. He obtained a law degree from Yale University in 1935, and became the founding president of the Albuquerque Ski Club in 1936. His wife, Virginia, first suggested they try out this new sport of skiing. He once told author Daniel Gibson, “We began to learn—no one really knew anything about it.” Low snow years in the early 1950s led him to turn over operations to the City of Albuquerque, but in 1952 he and a group of investors resumed management. Both men were inducted into the New Mexico Ski Hall of Fame’s first class, in 2003, along with Ernie Blake. (Courtesy Sandia Peak.) –Daniel Gibson

Taking up one whole corner of the tiny museum is a full-size Ski Apache gondola from the 1960s, and on another wall is a pair of bamboo ski poles with baskets the size of dessert plates. If you’ve skied around the block a few times in your life, you may remember the lace-up ski boots at the beginning of the “From Leather to Plastic” evolution of ski boots collection lined up in a glass case. Other artifacts like handmade wooden nordic skis, fragments of a tow rope and a weathered t-bar are displayed in between historic photos, stories and timelines.

But the real stories lie in the 37 placards on the Ski Hall of Fame of individuals and couples whose passion and foresight in the last century created an annual economic impact of more than $140 million for New Mexico. You’ll meet Kingsbury (Pitch) Pitcher who led work crews to design what is now Ski Apache near Ruidoso and acquired and developed Ski Santa Fe into a successful business until he sold it to the Abruzzo family in 1984; John and Judy Miller, the patriarchs of Red River Ski Area and the Enchanted Forest Cross Country Ski and Snowshoe area; and even the 2004 NCAA National Championship UNM ski team. If you’d like to read their stories in front of your own fire, you can find them all here.

The exact details of this photo—perhaps the oldest photo anywhere of an American Indian on skis—are lost to history but this image of a Taos Pueblo Indian is believed to have been taken in the Hondo Valley a few miles down-valley from Taos Ski Valley circa 1900. He is thought to have been a mail carrier who delivered letters in a pouch on his back to the mining community of Twining. His long single pole was the early favored means of controlling speed and for turning. The effort both uphill and down generated lots of body heat; thus his trim figure and relatively light clothing. (Courtesy TSV.)
–Daniel Gibson

If those stories whet your appetite for more New Mexico ski history, and you want to go back as far as the 19th century, check out the delightful book “Skiing in New Mexico” by Daniel Gibson and Jay Blackwood. Packed with vintage photos and anecdotes, this book may have you thinking a few things: “Wow, they had a lot of snow!”… “Wow, they did not dress very warmly.”… and, “They did all that skiing with no chair lifts?” For an additional short magazine article by Gibson, click here.

The ski industry in New Mexico has come a long way, thanks to passionate and tenacious people who channeled their love of the sport into entrepreneurial endeavors for the rest of us. There’s still time this season to write your own ski story!

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