New Mexico Resort Could Build One of America’s Highest Ski Lifts

The peak straddles the boundary of the Wheeler Peak Wilderness, which protects New Mexico’s highest mountain and is one of the state’s most heavily used wilderness areas. As Colorado ski resorts advertise extreme back bowls and some of the highest and fastest ski lifts in the North America, the crowds at Taos Ski Valley have been shrinking in recent years. Its owners are looking for ways to modernize the resort to entice Colorado-bound skiers to Taos, where the snow is often just as deep and the terrain just as extreme as any found in Colorado. Part of the answer to that problem, says Taos Ski Valley Chief Operating Officer Gordon Briner, is to build a new ski lift — the Mainstreet Lift — to the summit of Kachina Peak, replace the resort’s 20 year-old fixed-grip lifts with modern high-speed detachable lifts and clear new gladed terrain on forested slopes. Carson National Forest is fast-tracking its environmental review of the development plans, and those worried about the resort expansion’s potential impacts to wilderness, wildlife and water are beginning to raise their voices...more