Sneak Peek of the Week
Keystone ski patrollers plan union vote as resort industry and outdoor economy boom leaves workers wanting
11
Number of Western ski resorts with unionized ski patrollers and lift mechanics, up from six a few years ago
By the end of this winter, the number of ski resorts with unionized workers could grow to 15, up from a half-dozen a few seasons ago.
Keystone ski patrollers this week sent a petition to the National Labor Relations Board seeking approval of a union vote. The 93-member patrol tried to unionize in 2021 but the effort failed by a single vote.
This winter patrollers at five Western ski areas are attempting to form union locals and join the United Professional Ski Patrols of America, which now represents 700 patrollers and lift mechanics. In October, patrollers at Eldora Mountain Resort announced plans to hold a union vote. At Whitefish ski area in Montana patrollers voted 24-1 this week to unionize. Alterra Mountain Co.’s Palisades Tahoe in California and Solitude in Utah have filed petitions to form a union.
All cite a need for increased pay to match spiking housing and living costs in mountain towns.
“We have a hard time finding housing and paying for housing for a lot of us, housing costs us an entire paycheck,” says Cory Cavegn, a patroller at Keystone for four-years. “We’ve seen quite a few other patrols get into the union … and it’s pretty apparent that patrollers with the same amount of tenure and training are receiving better compensation at those other resorts.”
The growing unionization of resort workers arrives as ski resort operators thrive. Visitation to U.S. and Colorado ski resorts has set records in recent years. Vail Resorts last year reported $835 million in earnings on $2.9 billion in revenue. Alterra Mountain Co. recently raised $3 billion in new investments to pay back the initial investors who launched the company in 2018.
And the outdoor recreation economy reported $1.1 trillion in spending in 2022, making it one of the nation’s most vibrant rural economic engines. But wages for outdoor recreation workers have not risen along the industry’s meteoric rise. In Colorado, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated the mean wage for recreation workers in 2022 was $37,340 or $17.95 an hour.
“The whole idea of getting paid in fun is not going to work anymore,” says Ryan Dineen, the president of the Breckenridge ski patrol union. “The industry is not going to voluntarily change so we need to advocate and push for that change.”
>> Click over to The Sun on Friday to read this story
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In Their Words
Recreation, hunting groups urge senators to reject new Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners
The idea behind merging Colorado State Parks and the Division of Wildlife in 2011 was to save money by streamlining the two agencies. The marriage seemed forced and critics worried that parks would take a backseat to wildlife and agriculture.
Recreation advocates pushed to make sure the new 11-member Colorado Parks and Wildlife board of commissioners would represent the state’s recreation economy. Today, outdoor recreation is a pillar of the state’s economy, generating $37 billion in spending and supporting more than 500,000 jobs.
There are three members of the CPW commission who represent recreation and parks.
“Colorado has dozens and dozens and dozens of people who are highly qualified for those positions and could hit the ground running,” said Scott Jones, the head of the Colorado Snowmobile Association who has joined outfitters, hunters and cyclists in opposition to commissioners nominated by Gov. Jared Polis in July. “These are recreational folks who have no recreational background. We need leadership and these folks do not have it.”
Last week, the state Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee declined favorable recommendations for Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commissioners Gary Skiba and Jessica Beaulieu, with nay votes from senators who expressed concern over the agency’s direction and the experience of the two commissioners. The Colorado Senate is scheduled to discuss the nominees Friday.
Skiba represents hunters and anglers, and Beaulieu represents outdoor recreation and parks.
The hearing highlighted growing concerns in Colorado over “ballot-box biology” with voters wading into wildlife management and illustrated Western Slope angst over how recreation is represented on a board that must balance wildlife conservation with hunting, agricultural interests and state parks in Colorado.
State Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Democrat from Avon who chairs the committee and cast the swing vote in the 3-4 decisions against Skiba and Beaulieu, said he was troubled by the experience of the commissioners and their ability to represent hunters and anglers and the state’s parks.
“I am concerned about the direction of CPW right now,” Roberts said during the hearing, describing the wolf reintroduction process in his district as “incredibly damaging” to his constituents and the Western Slope.
Roberts asked each of the appointees how they learned about the application process and they answered that they had discovered the openings themselves.
“There’s been allegations that these folks were asked to apply because they fit a certain ideology rather than being genuinely interested in serving,” Roberts told The Colorado Sun the day after the committee confirmation hearing. “For example, it’s curious that someone (Beaulieu) who has never owned a parks pass and never visited any parks other than those close to Denver would have a passion for state parks usage.”
Colorado Sen. Perry Will, a Republican from New Castle, asked the appointees about Proposition 91, which could ask voters in November to ban mountain lion hunting if proponents secure more than 124,000 signatures by Aug. 5 to make the ballot.
Beaulieu said she preferred legislative efforts over ballot initiatives when it comes to wildlife. Skiba said there was a difference between the mountain lion proposal and wolf reintroduction, saying Proposition 91 is “taking a tool away from” CPW.
Will, after grilling the appointees, said he liked them, “but I love CPW and I love sportspersons.”
“My vote will be for the greater good of sportspersons,” said Will, criticizing ballot initiatives that seek to replace decisions by wildlife experts. “We are doing this all the wrong way and we are looking to you as commissioners to do it the right way … and stick to your guns in our traditional ways and our ways of life and our time-honored traditions because that is huge in this agency. I know people want to move away from the hook-and-bullet club … but CPW is the hook-and-bullet club.”
>> Click here to read this story
Breaking Trail
A peek behind the snowy curtain at Winter Park
2,400
Gallons of water per minute that blast through Winter Park’s snowmaking system
In 1951, innovator and Winter Park ski boss Stephen Bradley changed skiing with his Packer-Grader. The resort industry’s first-ever snow groomers at the Grand County ski hill would strap themselves to Bradley’s 700-pound rolling invention and smooth snow, creating the corduroy that defines today’s resort experience.
Today, groomers at Winter Park captain PistenBully snowcats costing in the high six figures — the resort has 20 groomers in its fleet — reclining in comfy seats while toggling joysticks to maneuver blades and tracks that comb 550 to 770 acres of snow every night. They join snow farmers using high-technology pressurized tools to blow thousands of gallons of water into floating, frozen crystals. (A majority — 4 out of 5 gallons, roughly — of that water returns to the Denver Water collection system in the headwaters of the Fraser River.)
The snowmakers and groomers are part of a midnight regiment who transform snowy mountains into ski resorts every night, readying slopes for the schussing hordes. The Sun’s Tracy Ross and Hugh Carey spent a night with Winter Park ski area’s end-of-the-day patrollers and overnight workers, crafting a peek at the labor involved in maintaining the ski area that hosts more than a million visits a season.
Snowmakers blanket 280 acres of terrain, running guns that can convert 2,400 gallons of water a minute into snow. Those guns blow for about 1,450 hours a season. Ski patrollers prowl the 3,081-acre ski area based out of four facilities and shuttle injured skiers into a Level V trauma center at the base. Lift mechanics constantly tinker and safeguard 23 chairlifts, including four doddering doubles that will turn 50 next year.
Ross and Carey spent time with all sorts of workers, including James Schold, a snowmaker who works 10 to 12 hours a night in the cold, yanking hoses and aiming snow guns. He loves it, waking at suppertime to start his wet, frigid shift.
“I mean, on any given day, I can run a snow machine, a snowcat, fan guns and ground guns,” Schold said. “You see a lot of wildlife — basically coyotes and foxes every night. Out here, it’s just about like being on a mirror — on a full-moon night you just about don’t need a headlamp. And the stars. I have beautiful, beautiful pictures of starry nights.”
>> Click over to The Sun on Sunday for Tracy’s story and Hugh’s photos
The Playground
Lawmakers propose wolverines to thwart “ballot-box biology”
100-180
Number of wide-roaming wolverines that fit into Colorado’s alpine landscapes
Western Slope Sens. Perry Will and Dylan Roberts this week introduced legislation authorizing Colorado Parks and Wildlife to develop a plan for reintroducing wolverines in Colorado.
The prowling alpine carnivore hasn’t been seen in the state in decades and the legislation gives CPW the go-ahead funding to return the fanged, foraging — and federally threatened — weasel to the Colorado high country. CPW, which traditionally has voiced neither support nor opposition to legislation impacting the agency, is cheering the bipartisan proposal.
Will, during a Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee hearing last week that ended with unfavorable recommendations for two nominees for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioner board, said he was proud of the bill and wished wolverines had been part of the state’s lynx reintroduction effort in 1999 and 2000.
Will, a Republican from New Castle, said his bill was meant to thwart “ballot box biology,” like the effort underway — Proposition 91 — to ban mountain lion hunting.
“If we don’t do it legislatively, we will get a ballot initiative,” said Will, who spent more than 40 years as a Western Slope wildlife officer. “The people I represent, it’s not about the wolves anymore. It’s about the government and getting things crammed down their throats. I don’t want a ballot measure on wolverines. I don’t want the one on 91. We are doing this all the wrong way and we are looking to you as commissioners to do it the right way.”
>> Click here to read this story
There are remote avalanche control systems all over Colorado, but can they solve the persistent slab problem?
54
Number of remote avalanche control systems above Colorado roadways
The goal behind the five remote-controlled Gazex exploders installed in 2015 in the notorious Stanley Mountain slide paths on Berthoud Pass was to prevent large accumulations of snow that could lead to large, unexpected avalanches that would bury U.S. 40.
Almost a decade later, the goal behind remote avalanche control systems — they call them RACS — remains unproven. Yes, they shorten the time needed to blast avalanche paths. But they still trigger big slides that bury roads. Like the rare D3 slide — that’s avalanche code for a slide large enough to bury a car and destroy a small building — on Stanley on Feb. 28 that closed 40 for three-and-a-half hours.
“There is still kind of an open question about whether this kind of (remote controlled avalanche) mitigation changes the return period of large avalanches,” said Ethan Greene, the executive director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. “Looking at the return rates of road hits on Stanley, and the rate has not changed much since the 1970s.”
The Feb. 28 slide on Stanley was the first D3 from a remote-controlled avalanche exploder since the historic March 2019 cycle that saw more than 1,000 avalanches in two weeks, with 87 very rare, forest-clearing D4 slides. (“Very rare” = CAIC had only recorded 24 D4 slides in the previous nine years.)
Since CDOT and CAIC began tracking slides in Stanley, the agencies see avalanche debris reaching the road about once every 1.6 years. Since CDOT installed the Gazex exploders in the Stanley Path, that length of time between road burials has not changed. Greene and his teams compiled the Berthoud Pass avalanche activity for this winter in a report that concluded the total road closure time during mitigation work has decreased with the RACs but “we will still have longer closures when large amounts of debris reach the road.”
Greene said the remote avalanche control system works well in Colorado. But it is not designed to work perfectly when conditions like high wind, loads of new snow and threatening layers of faceted snow create highly dangerous avalanche conditions. (That persistent slab problem is rampant in central Colorado’s mountains right now, with CAIC warning travelers of the potential for “valley-crushing” slides.)
Could more of the $120,000-to-$150,000 exploders help?
“A lot comes down to how much do you want to spend?” Greene said. “I think the program is actually working pretty well. That’s not to say we could do other things, but there is a cost in actual dollars plus closure times for the highway.”
— j
Corrections & Clarifications
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