ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Western ski resorts are wrapping up one of the most unusual and unpredictable snow seasons in recent memory.
New Mexico, traditionally warmer and with less reliable snowfall than its northern neighbors, this weekend celebrates the end of an unexpectedly good season that that withstood consistent forecasts of drought.
"It was the kind of season no one saw coming," said Dave Dekema, director of marketing for Angel Fire resort. "The predictions from the preseason to the end were completely wrong."
Meanwhile, some resorts in the traditionally snow-rich states of Utah and Colorado will close earlier after a warm season with lackluster snow.
And California and Nevada are hoping to erase double-digit declines in skier visits with a bounty of snow that didn't begin falling until almost March.
Colorado resorts reported skier visits were down more than 7 percent. And California was reporting double digit declines in lift ticket sales before the late February reprieve.
Even so, the news was not all bad.
Thanks to increased consumer spending and rising hotel rates that have accompanied the slow economic recovery, destination resorts were faring well despite the lack of snow, said Ralf Garrison, director of the Denver-based Mountain Travel Research Program, which tracks lodging at Western ski resorts.
The early season was especially strong, thanks to advance bookings.
"Over the Christmas holidays, the destination guests who came and didn't find snow to their liking" shopped, went to the spa, ate and partied, Garrison said,
"Vail's December sales tax was an all-time record. That's very surprising when you know there is no snow and skiers aren't coming until you realize the destination guest is really driving the economy."
In the town of Taos, N.M., spokeswoman Cathy Connelly, said some lodgers estimated visitor numbers were up as much as 20 percent over last year, when New Mexico ski resorts suffered through one of the driest seasons in recent memory.
At Taos Ski Valley, marketing manager Adriana Blake said skier visits were up about 10,000 over last year, but that New Mexico visits were still held back by reports of bad snow elsewhere.
"Spring was slower than I thought it would be, simply because people thought ... winter was over," he said.
Ed Polasko, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, said the La Nina weather pattern, a phenomenon based on cooler than normal water temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean, was responsible for keeping parts of the West unusually dry.
"It relented a little now and then to let the storm track take the driver's seat," he said. "And then it was all in the timing."
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