TAOS SKI VALLEY, N.M. — The venerable Taos ski area last week exited the country’s dwindling camp of ski-only resorts, welcoming snowboarders for the first time in its 53-year history.
The ‘boarder capitulation was driven by cold, hard economics.
The welcome mat is for more than just ‘boarders, who buy a little less than half of the country’s lift tickets. The hope at Taos, where visitation has been in steady decline for almost a decade, is to recapture families who vacation elsewhere because their kids are ‘boarding.
Taos was founded by the legendary Ernie Blake and his wife, Rhoda, in 1955 in the rugged Sangre de Cristo mountains of northern New Mexico.
“This is not something (Ernie) would have wanted, but he would have done it,” said Mickey Blake, who is Ernie’s son and the ski company’s president. “He would have recognized the economic importance of staying competitive.”
Snowboarding at Taos Ski Valley is expected to give the mountain a 12 percent boost in skier visits, enough to regain the losses of the past decade. The resort’s aim is to hover at 265,000 annual visits, a benchmark that keeps equipment humming and employees working.
Three generations of Blakes have captained Taos since Ernie and Rhoda first hosted skiers at the dauntingly steep hill. The couple lived in an 11-foot trailer at the base for the first few years. When they finally finished their lodge, they lived without electricity for another five years.
In accordance with the tenacious Blake legacy, helming the 400-employee resort means keeping hands dirty. In between stints delivering executive guidance, Blakes park cars, groom and patrol slopes and roll hot dogs on a flaming outdoor grill.
“That’s what makes Taos so cool. At any given moment the people who own and run the ski area can be found schlepping trash bags out to the Dumpster,” said Adriana Blake, granddaughter of Ernie and marketing director for the ski hill.
The bloodlines at Taos run deep. Blakes abound, with as many as two dozen dashing about the narrow valley 15 miles north of the artsy village of Taos. They leave their office doors propped open, hosting a steady stream of locals, visitors and employees. When the family made the call to terminate Ernie Blake’s longstanding skier-only decree, the friendly stream became a boisterous deluge.
Many locals opposed the ‘boarder-friendly decision and they did not hide their hurt. But it was the employees — 108 of them with more than 20 years of service to Taos — who felt most slighted.
“They were mournful,” Adriana Blake said. “They wanted us to stay exactly the same. I told them that’s how we go extinct. That’s how we just go away.”
The onslaught of opposition was enough to make the Blakes question their decades of steadfastly rejecting suitors intent on owning Taos.
“We definitely get offers, but we just haven’t ever felt it was something we wanted to do,” said Mickey Blake, sipping coffee from a Mickey Mouse mug in a cluttered office anchored by a portrait of his father Ernie. “Even though we are talking about more money than you can make in a lifetime, this family has always wanted to stay in the ski business.”
Remaining in the business has grown increasingly difficult in the past decade. Paltry snowfall in 2005-06 drove Taos skier visits to less than half of the early ’90s heydays, when the resort rode a wave of annual visits between 300,000 and 365,000. That was back when the hill sometimes harvested more than 300 inches of annual snow.
But the reason behind the declines went beyond snow. The Blakes kept hearing from loyal Taos skiers who skipped Taos because of their kids’ passion for the snowboard.
“We don’t go to mountains that don’t allow snowboarding,” said snowboarder J.D. Hutchison, a Pasadena, Texas, parent visiting Taos for the first time with his snowboarding kids. “How can we? You’re hard pressed to get a kid on skis these days. Snowboarding is cool. And you can’t fight that.”
It is a fight that remains intact at Utah’s Alta and Deer Valley, as well as Mad River Glen in Vermont. Those resorts have made no attempts to leave their shrinking ‘boarder-free niche.
For the Blakes, embracing snowboarders is another layer of armor that deflects the financial pinch of yo-yo snow years.
Without any real estate or lodging interests, the Blakes rely on their mountain to make money and keep employees earning. Lift tickets, lessons and food — that’s it for revenue.
Fickle snowfall — like that of the near-fatal season of 2005-06 when Taos logged a mere 152 inches of annual snow and a 25-year low of 158,000 skier visits — leaves all the Blakes barely clinging to their legacy, of which there are many reminders. The stern visage of Ernie, who died in 1989 at age 75, still hangs on many Taos walls.
Opposition to the arrival of sideways riding single -plankers has revolved around Ernie’s continuous edicts banning snowboards.
“Ernie Weeps” read a poster held by 20-year Taos skier Duprelon Tizdale as he settled into a chairlift with woohooing snowboarders on the chilly morning last Wednesday when ‘boarders first shredded Taos.
“I have to make a statement for passholders and for Ernie,” Tizdale said. “Their justification, economics, is not valid, I think. For every snowboarder they get, they will lose a skier who came here because there was no snowboarding.”
The arrival of snowboarding coincides with another monumental move by the Blakes at Taos. For the first time in 53 years, the family’s ski company will be taking on debt as it acquires a 1.5-acre parcel in the ski village. Condos will grow on the parcel, and selling those slopeside palaces will pay for needed capital improvements like a new groomer and shuttles.
The bump in visits should trickle beyond the ski hill. Many valley business owners pine for a return to the gravy days when the mountain regularly hit its 4,800-skier daily peak. Their fortunes are inextricably tied to the Blakes, who can’t funnel tens of millions a year into their hill like the corporately held competition in the ski resort world.
“But we didn’t buy our hotel thinking the Blakes would sell and we could make millions. We came here for the skiing,” said Paul Geilenfeldt, who with his wife, Susie, bought the valley’s Columbine Inn in 2000.
“Still, we get a lot of calls from families in recent years who can’t come here because of the ‘boarding thing,” said Susie. “We like this move. We like change.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com
