the end of an era
Taos Ski Valley to Finally Welcome Snowboarders
By Carson Bennett, 12-15-07
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Taos Ski Valley opened yesterday with more snow for the first day than they’ve had in thirty years. Three thousand skiers showed up throughout the day. My friends and I were among the first thirty or so, at 8:15am, racing for first chair.
As we stepped off the shuttle from the parking lot we were greeted by a Taos Ski Valley employee. He had some announcements. “Only the front side is open today. We have seventy eight inches of snow, and plenty of powder. The back side will be open on Saturday. Oh, and we’re opening the mountain to snowboarders on March 19th.”
Did I hear him correctly? I stood on the first step of the stairs to the ticket office and looked around at the other skiers. Most of us looked confused. “Snowboarders? But, this is Taos.”
Taos Ski Valley has never allowed snowboarders. It has been a purist ski paradise since it opened fifty-five years ago. Now, only Alta, Mad River, and Deer Valley will still prohibit snowboarders.
The news was all over the mountain within minutes, and was the main topic of conversation all day. I heard mixed reactions on the lifts, in Tenderfoot Katie’s Cafeteria during lunch, and from my friends who have been skiing almost exclusively at Taos for years.
“It’s the end of an era,” my friend Randall said. “It was inevitable, but I hate to see it happen. It’s going to change the whole culture of this place.”
I rode up Lift 2 in the afternoon with a man in a green wool hat and well-worn ski pants, and asked him what he thought. “I’ll tell you what I think. Those f***ing knuckle-draggers are gonna ruin this mountain. They’re gonna f*** up the lines, scrape all the snow off Blitz or anything steep, f*** up the bumps on Al’s. And you know they’re gonna be lying around the mountain like a bunch of god damn slobs,” he spat. He shook his head in disgust. “That’s the end of this mountain.”
The most common remarks were something along the lines of Ernie Blake “rolling over in his grave.” As legend has it, Ernie Blake, the legendary founder of Taos Ski Valley, made a dying wish that Taos would never open to snowboarders. As his granddaughter (and TSV Marketing Director) Adriana Blake told Albuquerque Journal reporters, “It’s a lie; it’s totally not true. His death-bed wish was that his grandchildren—and there are thirteen of us—have college educations…and he died in 1989. Snowboarding then wasn’t an issue. It would have never occurred to him.”
According to the new TSV snowboarding website, the Blake clan made the decision for family reasons. “Taos has a long-standing tradition of being family oriented, and now with so many young people snowboarding, we are turning away more and more families, particularly families that traditionally come to Taos. Opening to snowboarding allows us to refocus on being a family oriented mountain.”
Opening up to snowboarders will bring more families, more people, more business, more money—but what else will happen? More restaurants? More condos? Higher ticket prices? Over-crowded catwalks and narrow runs? Will Taos devolve into the next “family oriented” mega-resort, or will it be able to maintain its home-mountain culture? We’ll find out, I suppose, in March; when we’re all standing at Taos in the same lift line for the first time.
What do you think about Taos opening the mountain to snowboarders? Leave a comment. Let us know.
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Comments
Sure, there are bad apples in every bunch, but after a season of shared use, the controversy will die down and that will be the end of it. Just look at Aspen: once Ajax allowed snowboarders, there was a crescendo of outcry and boarders descended on the mountain like it was the new mecca. But after a while things settled down and now you don't find a whole lot of them there because the riding is better elsewhere in the system of Aspen mountains. It's no big deal.
The "family" reason for changing policy is probably as good as they could come up with (or borrow, rather) because this sport's been around long enough that there are now multiple generations on trays and it's not going away. As a snowboarder, alpiner and tele-skier with two kids learning proficiencies on all the snow-sliding tools, I say it's about time. And I'm glad for Taos' sake they will not go down in history as the last winter resort area to allow snowboarders. Question is, Who's it gonna be?
Forget that crappy resort in a state that gets no snow anyway. Spend your money in other places that aren't so ridiculous. Look at that picture and then google Whistler, that choice is easy. Skiing is something that would be dead without snowboarding, just ask your kids who the hell The Hermanator and then ask them who Shaun White is, that will be a true guide. Who cares about Taos?
http://www.shaunwhite.com
that is a real rider.
Stop being elitists! It's just one or two boards strapped to your feet as you have a blast hauling a$$ down the mountain.
If there was a mountain strictly for snowboarders, the same dude that was complaining on the lift would be bitchin' about that as well. The likes of him will never be happy in any situation.
As for scraping off steep chutes, it is universal no matter which way you stand on the mountain. Gapers are gapers, whether they ski or snowboard and I've seen plenty of skiers ruin great steeps throughout the Rockies, the Sierras, BC, and the Northeast. So don't go blaming "knuckle draggers" for ruining your runs. Besides sculpted, purposeful bumps, has anyone really seen how bumps are formed in the steeps? Skiers, making their wide, lame, non-stylish turns...out of fear. Point that shiz down the mountain and ski the fall line so that my knees make it long enough that I can drag my knuckles well into my 60s-70s. I hate scraped entries just as much as the next person, and I prefer to stand sideways.
I'm glad to see that they're doing it on a trial basis, but it sounds like this is to stay. The first thing I did when I heard about this was call Ernie's widow, and she was classically blunt about it: "The skiers are dying and we still have to make money." (Rhoda's quite the pragmatist) I doubt the man who used to greet every skier on his mountain would agree, but business is business.
However, I don't think opening the mountain to snowboarding is going to be what makes Taos lose its niche. That boat has sailed. The Inn at Snakedance already removed the view of the mountain from the parking lot, then the Edelweiss was rebuilt to obscure Strawberry Hill, and now the Thunderbird has been torn down. Dadou got out years ago, but Jean Mayer is still keeping the St. Bernard as is -- for now. When he sells, it's all over. For all the protestations of not being Vail, when everything is condos and people turn to nightlife, the idea of Taos being special ceases. It won't be the snowboarders. I used to want to live and work in Taos. Now, well, it's be fun hearing Rhoda tell stories, but the valley has lost its humanity.
I miss the days where I could walk into a store there and have someone remember me. If Adriana's claim is that the personal service is still there ... well, may as well let snowboarders in, because the real reason it was special is gone.
Hardly anybody takes lower ruby anymore after they installed that lift that goes from the bottom of Bob's bowl to the top of Bambi so I don't think that'll be a problem. As for whitefeather or goldmine corner, that place has always been a mess so I don't see how it can get worse but I agree and know it will. They better put a big wall on that corner next to the cliff or there's gona some people stuck in the trees. It's gona be kinda funny to see people getting bumped off into rasberry.
Taos should consider itself lucky that snowboarders will ruin its culture. Ruining is exactly what fascist skier snob culture needs.
To all you old pissed off skiers, grow up some more I guess. Move away from the mind set of the 80s and 90s and realize that what you ride doesn't define who you are, just how you move down the mountain.
I was watching a Warren Miller flick last night and at one point the commentater said, "If snowboarding had been invented first, they wouldn't let skiers on the mountain." Pretty good point, however, it wouldn't matter to me how people want to ride the mountain.
-mattskity
will be there opening day, with bells on my STICK.
The crowd... What crowd? I think I got used to Colorado weekends at Breck, Copper, and Jane. I heard Taos sold out on the 3/19 date but I swear, you'd still see an empty lift every once in a while. Even when the lift line went to the end, you were still going up the mountain within 15 minutes. With that being said, a busy day at Taos reminds me of a weekday in Colorado. Not bad at all. All you Colorado people need to come check out the ridge for a good time if you think you've got the ingredients. Off to Parson's bowl until next year when I can go home to enjoy the mountain all year with the skier wife and undecided 2 year old.