Lost ski areaNew MexicoSangre de Cristo MountainsRocky Mountains
Powder Puff
Ran 1965–1983. A beginners' ski hill a mile west of Red River that ran from 1965 to 1983, its last years as Red River's Woodlands Ski Basin.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Powder Puff opened in 1965 just west of Red River, off State Highway 38. It was a hill for beginners, with 100 feet of vertical, and its business was teaching people to ski for the first time.1
Read the whole historyTimeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Powder Puff, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Powder Puff
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1982–2000 · 11 mi away · New MexicoA ski area near Amalia, just south of the Colorado line, that ran through the 1980s and again in the late 1990s before closing in January 2000.
- 1970–1982 · 19.2 mi away · New MexicoA small Poma-lift ski hill a few miles north of Angel Fire that served church groups from 1970 until 1982.
- 1967–1987 · 62.9 mi away · ColoradoA family-owned ski area in Sugarite Canyon northeast of Raton, New Mexico, at the Colorado line, that ran in spells from 1967 to the late 1980s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 1 page below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Powder Puff opened in 1965 just west of Red River, off State Highway 38. It was a hill for beginners, with 100 feet of vertical, and its business was teaching people to ski for the first time. Red River Ski Area bought it in 1980 and renamed it The Woodlands Ski Basin. Red River kept the hill running for three more winters, then closed it in 1983 and moved its first-timer lessons to the main mountain. The lifts were still standing in 1994 and were gone by 2006.1
Sources for this history (1)
- 1Colorado Ski History · Powder Puff / The Woodlands Ski Basin
Photos
No photographs of Powder Puff we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Powder Puff, in their own words.
Facts
Location
36.7075° N · 105.4219° W · New Mexico · Sangre de Cristo Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1965–1983
Closed after the 1983 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain