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Taos Ends Snowboarding Ban

(from the March 2008 issue of Skiing Heritage magazine)

THE NEWS: Beginning March 19, northern New Mexico’s Taos Ski Valley Resort is allowing snowboarders on its lifts. With Taos’ surrender, Deer Valley, Alta and Mad River Glen are the three remaining U.S. areas still banning snowboarders.

THE STORY BEFORE THE NEWS: It’s often said that when snowboarding began to grow as a popular recreational sport in the 1980s, the majority of ski areas banned it. But the actual number of places that did so is not well documented. In (Sick), the history of early snowboarding, author Susanna Howe scarcely even mentions the subject, although there was undeniable hostility to the gnarly, unkempt teenagers arriving at resorts with their newfangled boards.

What is documented is that the number of places where snowboarding is prohibited has fallen steeply from 14 years ago. Peak Ski Guide and Travel Planner, in an authoritative survey, estimated that 40 ski areas would ban snowboarding in the winter of 1994. The same winter, Snow Country magazine found that of 340 ski areas responding to its request for information, 313 allowed snowboarding.

In the last dwindling winters of the 20th Century, as snowboarding soared in popularity, resorts opposing it rapidly gave up their opposition. Colorado’s last holdout, Ajax mountain in Aspen, ended its ban in 2001.

Snowboarding’s growth as a proportion of people on the slopes has virtually halted in the last couple of winters. Boarders now account for about 30 percent of ski area visits.

JOURNAL OF ISHA, THE INTERNATIONAL SKIING HISTORY ASSOCIATION
The International Skiing History Association is a not-for-profit corporation, whose mission is to preserve and advance the knowledge of ski history and to increase public awareness of the sport's heritage.

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