As snowfall declines, Taos rethinks an economy long rooted in winter tourism

TAOS — Save for a few new-fangled tools and tricks he’s picked up along the way, 66-year-old Brett Shipley still sharpens and waxes a set of skis the way he always has: “To get you where you’re going,” he says.

But as the sparks fly and the wax piles up on his workbench each year at Adventure Ski Shops, one of Taos County’s longest-running winter retailers, the snowfall that snow sports lovers and ski-industry pros depend on has become less reliable than when Shipley first moved to Taos in the ’80s.

“This is going to be my 43rd year in business,” Adventure Ski Shops owner Moises Martinez said. “And out of those 43 years, I’ve only had maybe three bad years. Last year was one of the worst I’ve ever had because there was so little precipitation in Taos County.”

Northern New Mexico received its first notable snowfall last Sunday, just a little later than its typical mid-November return.

But both on and off the mountain, Taos County is looking for ways to be less dependent on the forecast — and more broadly, tourism — to foretell its economic fortunes.

While some regions still receive ample winter precipitation due to a combination of climatic and geographic good luck, the snowfall that drives ski town economics has been slowly declining globally since the 1970s, according to a 2023 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Add in a La Niña climate pattern, which caused a drier, warmer winter season in the Southwest last year and is forecast to do the same in 2025-26, and you have a recipe that makes any tourism-driven local business owner sweat.

Taos Ski Valley Inc. is the economic pillar to local businesses in the tiny Village of Taos Ski Valley, north of Taos, that Vail Resorts is to many towns in the Colorado Rockies.

Purchased in 2013 by billionaire conservationist Louis Bacon, TSV Inc. has solidified its position as one of the premier ski destinations in the U.S., taking on new real estate ventures like the Blake Hotel, which was completed in 2017, and Hotel St. Bernard, which the corporation bought in 2021 and is in the process of renovating.

Kent Forté is the property manager at Edelweiss Lodge & Spa, one of just a handful of businesses in Taos Ski Valley that remains independent of the resort. He said TSV Inc.’s new motto, “better, not bigger,” often translates to premium prices that have been divisive among some longtime local skiers.

But the revenues those prices bring in also help fund cutting-edge resort services that all local businesses benefit from, like robust snowmaking machines and personnel that have become essential as warm, dry winters become more common.

“I think they’ve seen that as crucial, and that has certainly mitigated, to some extent, the impact of low snow years,” Forté said.

TSV Inc. declined to comment, but a 2022 article published on the resort’s website, skitaos.com, said “the climate crisis is an existential threat for TAOS ...” In response, the resort in recent years has invested more in its summer off-season offerings, with new bike trails, guided mountain climbing and pickleball, among other activities.

The corporation’s shared dependence on the Rio Hondo flowing from the headwaters of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Taos Ski Valley has been a source of contention among downstream water users and acequia parciantes.

But Forté said the resort’s aggressive snowmaking also helped offset last year’s dry, warm winter season and kept local businesses in the black.

“We’re snow farmers, you know?” he said. “I remember one of my early food and beverage managers and I were standing in the cafe looking out the window, and it was snowing. I said, ‘You see that white stuff falling? A lot of people call that snow. You’ll learn to call it money.’ It’s what it is.”

Business owners and operators in wider Taos County also depend on snow-driven tourism in the winter months.

“It all depends on snow,” said Julie Sena, a manager at the Historic Taos Inn, who has worked there for 20 years. “That’s our money-maker right there. The Ski Valley opens on Thanksgiving Day, and if we get those people in, we’re set. If we don’t, it really hurts us. Last year we had no snow, you know?”

Taos Ski Valley Inc. opened Thursday with limited terrain available.

Jessica Stern, Taos County’s economic development director since 2023, says even Holy Cross Medical Center has reported a dip in patient volumes and corresponding revenues during low-snow seasons.

Stern has spent time researching how Taos County can diversify its business community to be less reliant on the often unpredictable swings of tourism, long the backbone of GRT and lodger’s tax revenues.

“I think that when we’re looking at building a resilient and diverse economy, then that’s where we can look at other sectors that are already really, really strong here,” she said.

One bright spot is the local nonprofit arts and culture sector, she said, which generates $70.3 million annually for the county.

“That’s enormous,” Stern said. “It’s actually the third largest value add of rural communities in the country, meaning places with populations of less than 50,000.”

She’s hopeful that New Mexico’s relatively new Creative Industries Division, created under House Bill 8 during the 2023 legislative session, will work with local economies to help capitalize on already well-established arts sectors like Taos’.

In February, Taos County invested $400,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding into the Taos Center for the Arts’ Inter-Arts Internship Program, which offers paid work-based experience in production, stage management and other creative disciplines. A portion of that funding is going toward renovating a building near the TCA to serve as an education center for the program.

“They’re learning all these different kinds of skills within the context of a creative organization, which is very, very cool,” Stern said. “So the TCA is now serving, because of our investment, about 50 kids per year, which is pretty amazing.”

Taos also recently began revisiting the idea of opening a film office and, in August, the Taos County Planning Commission granted a special use permit to a local company to convert a shuttered schoolhouse into a film lot.

The ethos of preserving and developing the resources Taos already has is central to the Taos Destination Stewardship Plan, a joint initiative created by the county, the town of Taos and Taos MainStreet in 2024. The plan is designed to help guide future development and tourism in the area, with an emphasis on preserving the local culture, environment and workforce.

“Destination stewardship, in general, is this idea that the global movement for places as destinations means recognizing that being a destination brings both opportunities and costs,” said Jessie Hook, network manager for the Taos Destination Stewardship Network. “Balancing all of those things when it comes to how it impacts culture, the economy, people and their environment requires a lot of collaboration.”

The 2024 plan, created with the Center for Responsible Travel and George Washington University, contains nine “focus areas and stewardship goals”: Stewardship Communication, Inclusion and Equity, Workforce Stability, Protect Authenticity, Workforce Housing, Sustainable Mobility, Sustainable Practices, Monitoring and Reporting, and Collaborative Management.

“It’s challenging, but it’s also really exciting,” Hook said. “People are getting it and are interested in this for a whole variety of reasons — the central goal and objective being caring for this place that is also a destination to many other people.”

Hook emphasized that putting the plan into action depends on another scarce resource: time.

“A lot of this work takes a long time, especially in our town’s community,” she said. “But there’s a lot to celebrate that might not look flashy and shiny to your average person in our community. There’s been a lot that’s been done through this effort already.”

In the meantime, Martinez, who once operated five ski shops in Taos but then downsized to two, said Taos’ continued draw for outsiders is what keeps him in business each winter.

New entrants to the ski industry, however, might keep a weather eye out.

“The ski retail business has been good for me, but I am well established,” he said. “If anybody else would have started a business a year ago or so, it’d be hard for them to make a living. Everything’s gotten so expensive, just like everything else. Last year, I only rented out two pairs of snowshoes, and that was because the only snow out there was on Wheeler Peak.”