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Cowboy up! (downhill, that is)
Durango, Colorado
If skiers and snowboarders can't have fun in Durango, they had better hang up their spurs and retreat to a monastery or convent. This town rocks with real Western good times and is filled with the tang of days gone by. Surrounded by ranch lands, Durango has plenty of local cowboys, and the town's residents are a nice mix of ranchers, West Coast transplants, college students and curious visitors.
Twenty-five miles north of town at Purgatory Mountain, the trails drop from the shoulders of a two-mile-long ridge into a glacial valley. The area is perfect for intermediates looking for wide-open cruising. Beginners have good learn-to-ski-or-ride trails alongside the condominiums. Experts can find good tree-skiing and some respectable steeps at the far reaches of the resort. Some of the tree-skiing stashes are surprisingly demanding.
For that Western feel, stay and dine downtown. El Rancho has been serving libations since Jack Dempsey fought his first fight there. Step back in time at the classic Diamond Belle Saloon in the historic Strater Hotel. Get ready to polka, two-step or waltz to live music with some real cowboys at the Wild Horse Saloon. The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, a National Historic Landmark, winds through 46 miles of the San Juan National Forest to the old mining town of Silverton, Colorado, which is itself a National Historic Landmark District. Can't get much more historical than that.
Ruidoso, New Mexico
Ski Apache, the southernmost major ski resort in North America, is only 120 miles north of Mexico. It doesn't sound like a cowboy sort of place, but where there were Indians, there were cowboys. In the hills surrounding nearby Ruidoso, Geronimo and his Apache tribesmen waged war against the U.S. Cavalry. Here, Billy the Kid hung out and nearby, in the town of Lincoln, Pat Garrett finally cornered him. Today, real cowboys speak of Ruidoso with reverence. The Hubbard Museum of the American West displays the country's most complete collection of carriages, wagons and Western horse artifacts. Every western rancher who has ever raised a horse knows of Ruidoso Downs, whose quarter-horse races award America's biggest prizes. Starting this Memorial Day, Ruidoso will host the 50th anniversary of these races.
One of the most dramatic mountain roads in North America leads to Ski Apache. The trails drop from 11,500 feet and are split between bowl skiing and a series of runs that plunge from the peak of a forested ridge. (There is a sense of the surreal when lift attendants with long, jet-black hair help to load the chairlifts and operate the gondola. You'd think these were extras in some soon-to-be-filmed cowboy-and-Indian epic.) Beginners have a separate learning area. Intermediates have plenty of long cruising runs along the ridgeline to the west as well as all the bowl skiing and riding they can take in the huge Apache Bowl. Experts can pick out the spaces between tight trees or test themselves dropping down the steeps of the bowl.
Make sure to stop at the Cattle Baron or the Texas Club for sizzling steaks. Get in your fill of gambling at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, where a new casino sits beside a shimmering lake; its picture windows open to views of the Apache tribe's sacred mountain, Sierra Blanca. For real cowboy dancing, don't miss a night at one of my favorite dancing spots, WPS (Win Place & Show), where real western bands fiddle and strum up two-steps, cowboy waltzes and polkas until the wee hours. And, if there is a musical or dramatic performance, make sure to attend the surprising, world-class Spencer Theater.
The Old West, cowboy flavor is hard to beat and is unique to the good old United States. From the unpretentious towns of Ruidoso, Durango and Steamboat Springs to the upscale tourist towns of Jackson Hole and Ketchum/Sun Valley, the cowboy constants are locales that have great skiing and riding and also hark back, authentically, to the historic days of yore.
My guidebook, "Ski Snowboard America" (World Leisure, $24.95), is updated every year by a group of America's top ski and snowboard writers. It is the most complete resource for anyone planning a winter snow-sports vacation in North America and covers every major resort in Canada and the United States.
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