The Taos Ski Valley plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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Taos Ski Valley’s center stands about 9,390 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 8,890 ft to 12,470 ft, a difference of 3,580 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Wheeler Peak, about 13,120 ft, 3 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Glacial deposits (unconsolidated), from the Pleistocene, less than 0.8 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Granodiorite, diorite, gabbro. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.7 to 1.8 billion years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone, mixed-clastic. Age: Carboniferous, 299 to 324 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
Metavolcanic, metaclastic, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.8 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Granitic, gneiss. Age: Paleoproterozoic, 1.6 to 1.7 billion years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene, less than 0.8 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Granitic, syenitic. Age: Eocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 56 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 smaller units along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Taos Ski Valley reaches the Gulf of America by way of Lake Fork, the Rio Hondo and the Rio Grande: about 1,700 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Paz Ramirez Lake, Amistad Reservoir, Elephant Butte Reservoir and Caballo Reservoir.
760 miles of the trip are on the Rio Grande.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Taos Ski Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
