A few more turns: New Mexico skiers, boarders make the most of final days of record-low snow season

TAOS SKI VALLEY — As the season wears on here, the airy swish of powder has given way to the watery squish of slush earlier and earlier in the day.

But that hasn’t kept the skiers away, at least not at one of North America’s most renowned and well-resourced winter playgrounds.

Despite record-low snow conditions across the state, Taos Ski Resort was brimming with activity Thursday.

Skiers and boarders cruised the slopes until the lifts stopped turning for the day as resort-goers lounged with drinks in the sunshine and little kids crouched in the slush making snowballs.

Charlie Raible of Telluride, Colorado, was one of several competitors practicing for the Freeride World Tour, which started Tuesday. He said he was grateful there was still enough snow to host the competition in Taos this year.

“It’s a little rough on snow, but we compete tomorrow and it should be fun,” Raible said. “I mean, it’s been a hard winter for everybody this season, but big ups to Taos for making this event happen and keeping it going. Everybody’s having a blast.”

Taos Ski Valley had a base snow depth of roughly 30 inches on Thursday, with 76 inches total this season, according to skitaos.com.

The resort has invested heavily in snowmaking personnel and equipment in recent years, allowing it to create snow to make up for warm, dry conditions seen across New Mexico and the wider West this winter when temperatures dip low enough.

Ashley Geisheker, a spokesperson for Feed Media, the resort’s marketing and public relations contractor, said the resort plans to stay open through Taos Ski Resort’s usual closing date of April 5.

“As usual, they will close terrain as conditions make it no longer viable, and some (food and beverage) hours will change as the season wraps up,” she said.

Other resort around the state, however, are choosing to close early due to the lack of snow.

Eric Thompson, director of marketing at Ski Santa Fe, for example, announced on Thursday the resort plans to close roughly two weeks short of the final day their lifts usually stop spinning.

“We fought to the very end, but the 2025/26 winter season will come to a close earlier than we hoped,” a news release from the resort reads. “Unusually warm temperatures, a challenging snowpack and no new storms on the horizon have led us to make the decision to close on March 22nd.”

Pajarito Mountain Ski Area, located outside Los Alamos in the Jemez Mountains,  closed last weekend. The resort will host an end-of-season party March 21, featuring disk golf instead of ski events.

“Pajarito doesn't really have man-made snow, so the snow just melted out,” said Christiana Hudson, director of marketing for the resort. “It was just melting so fast. And it's a pretty sunny mountain, too.”

She added that the Jemez Mountain Regional Fire Protection Project plans to build a water pipeline to battle fires and to provide a resource for the resort to introduce snowmaking, which she said has become crucial for ski resorts to stay open amid unseasonably warm, dry winters.

Hudson also provides marketing for Taos County’s Sipapu Ski and Summer Resort, which she said may also close early from its usual March 29 end date due to temperatures that could reach toward 70 next week. The closure date remained open-ended on Thursday, she said.

Temperatures have been so consistently above the freezing temperatures required for snowmaking this season, she added, that Sipapu’s mountain operations team harvested snow from trees to keep certain runs open.

Despite climatic challenges, however, she said the resort continues to adapt.

“Surprisingly, we were able to open more terrain this year on less snow than we did last year, primarily due to more efficiency in our snow making system,” she said. “We had a couple of new pumps that were really powerful in our snowmaking system that made snow more efficiently, and that manmade snow is pretty stable in terms of, it's how it sticks around, even when it's warm.”

As the lifts slowed to a stop at Taos Ski Valley on Thursday, Katrina Hussman and Debs Girardot, both of Houston, Texas, watched over their daughters at the base as they played in the snow, which was beginning to drip into drainage grates along the resort’s sidewalk.

Despite the high temperatures and less-than-ideal snow conditions, they said they intend to return with their families next year.

“It’s gorgeous,” Hussman said. “You know, it’s slushy, a little icy, but that’s spring skiing. The kids loved it. They were just going up and down the mountain constantly, throwing snowballs — just loving life.”

John Miller is the Albuquerque Journal’s northern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at jmiller@abqjournal.com.