Since I was just on a press trip to Taos and recalled this lengthy thread, I felt some obligation to FTO readers to ask Adrianna Blake pointed questions about the snowboard ban.
My opening to raise the issue came when she told us that Taos' market was 35% Texas drive-up and 25% local and other drive-up. I would have presumed that Taos was mostly fly-in destination visitors, most of whom vociferously support the ban.
Adrianna said that rumors of Ernie Blake mandating the ban on his deathbed, or any other reason for entrenched Blake family stubbornness, are absolutely untrue.
She personally agreed with both of my points expressed early in this thread:
1) There is a fairness issue to experts because Taos has so much more steep terrain than the rest of New Mexico's ski areas combined.
2) If the ban were lifted, she thinks there would be a temporary surge in snowboarders, but the only recurring visits would be from the ones who can handle the terrain.
Adrianna did mention the traffic funneling issue on those two trails (Rubezahl and Whitefeather) that everyone has to take to the bottom of the hill. This is also the reason Taos will never build high speed lifts in her opinion. She also believes Taos benefits from the free publicity of the "Free Taos" stickers and billboards.
But she said the bottom line was economics, and that they do study their market closely. Texas (and Dallas metro area in particular) is the key market in terms of $, and most of the kids that snowboard in Texas families also ski, and are willing to ski when they go to Taos.
Adrianna said that if the kids/families in Dallas started to favor snowboarding anything like we see in L.A., Taos would lift the ban in a minute.
