Dalai Lama at Ski Santa Fe, 1991: “This Skiing Is Wonderful Sport!”

In April 1991 the Dalai Lama rode a chairlift to the top of the Santa Fe ski basin in New Mexico, wearing his monk’s robes and ordinary leather shoes, and declared: “This skiing is wonderful sport!” The writer Douglas Preston, who served as press secretary for the visit, told the story in Slate in February 2014.

How the Dalai Lama came to Santa Fe in 1991

In the 1980s Preston lived in Santa Fe and was friends with a group of Tibetan exiles who ran a business on Canyon Road. Their founder, Paljor Thondup, had met the Dalai Lama as a schoolboy in Pondicherry, India. After the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, Thondup invited him to New Mexico.

The Dalai Lama arrived on 1 April 1991 with only a few monks, no staff and no budget. James Rutherford organised the trip on goodwill: a donated limousine, free food and rooms at Rancho Encantado, a resort outside Santa Fe, and a New Mexico state police detail. Preston became press secretary and pledged $50 to the effort.

A lunch, a question and a change of plan

On the second-to-last day, the Dalai Lama had lunch with Senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici and Governor Bruce King. Skiing came up, and he wanted to know all about it. Instead of driving back to Rancho Encantado to rest, the limousine turned around and headed up into the mountains to the ski basin.

Benny Abruzzo, whose family owned the ski area, came out to meet a party of monks in robes and Oxford wingtip shoes. He let them ride the quad chairlift to the top.

“This skiing is wonderful sport!” on the chairlift

Getting on was the hard part. Near the lift, a group of teenage skiers knocked the visitors over in the snow, and the Dalai Lama laughed helplessly. On the ride up, with the Sangre de Cristo peaks around them, he told Preston: “This skiing is wonderful sport!” Looking at the mountains, he added, “This look like Tibet,” and then, “I think, if Tibet be free, we have good skiing!”

Back down, he questioned Abruzzo about the sport and was surprised to learn that people with one leg could ski.

The meaning of life, served at the ski lodge

The best-known moment came in the lodge. A young waitress with tangled blond hair and a beaded headband sat down at the table and asked, “What is the meaning of life?”

The Dalai Lama answered at once: “The meaning of life is happiness.” The harder question, he went on, is what makes happiness, asking, “What make true happiness?” The waitress thanked him and went back to work. Preston’s Slate essay is titled after that exchange: “I Took the Dalai Lama to a Ski Resort and He Told Me the Meaning of Life.”

Ski Santa Fe: the mountain he visited

The area is now called Ski Santa Fe and sits about 16 miles (26 km) east of the city in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It is one of the highest ski areas in North America: the base lies at 10,350 ft (3,155 m) and the summit at 12,075 ft (3,680 m), giving 1,725 ft (526 m) of vertical.

A rope tow ran there from 1936, and the first chairlift opened in 1949. Today the mountain has 88 trails, split roughly 20% beginner, 40% intermediate and 40% advanced, plus terrain parks. At that altitude the sun is strong even in midwinter, so bring sunscreen and goggles on a clear spring day like the one the Dalai Lama enjoyed.

For more skiing stories, read another chapter in skiing’s history or follow curiosity and a first experience on a ski-jumping hill.

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