CRESTED BUTTE — Just about every driver honks. A bundled fellow on a tired townie bike chants “go on strike, go on strike” as he pedals past.
Nathan Rodekuhr and Rob Alexander lift their signs high as locals voice support for their union. The unionized lift mechanics at Crested Butte Mountain Resort want the ski area’s owner — Vail Resorts — to pay them more and help them offset the cost of safety training and equipment.
The mechanics say they will strike if North America’s largest ski area operator does not negotiate a contract that starts their pay at $23 an hour, up from $21 now.
“It worked for Park City,” Alexander said, pointing to the Park City Mountain unionized ski patrollers whose first-in-decades strike hobbled the 7,300-acre ski area over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, generating a torrent of bad publicity for Vail Resorts.
The company settled with the Park City patrollers after a 12-day strike, delivering an average wage increase of $4 an hour.
“They think anyone can come in and do our job, but we have pretty special knowledge about this ski area,” Rodekuhr said. “Vail Resorts is really good at bringing people to the mountain.”
“But what if the lifts don’t turn?” said Alexander, as the cars honked at the busy Crested Butte four-way stop and drivers shouted their support for the workers who keep Crested Butte Mountain’s 12 lifts spinning. “That’s when things will get interesting.”
Vail Resorts’ 2025 is already interesting.
Labor negotiations have challenged Vail Resorts as the company endures a pummeling rain of blows in the past month. This week, an obscure investor made national headlines when he issued an 88-page analysis of Vail Resorts saying the company is being mismanaged and calling for the resignation of CEO Kirsten Lynch, chief financial officer Angela Korch and chairman Rob Katz.
It’s unclear how many shares of Vail Resorts stock are owned by Late Apex, but the North Carolina firm says its largest investment is in Vail Resorts.
There is a lot that is unknown about Late Apex, which Taylor G. Schmidt formed in 2024.
The only company registered in North Carolina to Schmidt is an LLC that dissolved in 2017. Schmidt’s Late Apex presentation detailing Vail Resorts’ recent financial performance describes him as “a private investor” and Late Apex as “a best ideas fund” with operating experience in Kraft Heinz and VF Corp.
Schmidt’s analysis said the Park City patroller strike was “a boiling point.”
“Vail’s early success has led the company to become complacent,” Schmidt wrote. “We view Vail’s core failure as its total loss of focus on its north star: delighting the customer. Moreover, Vail has alienated virtually all meaningful stakeholders: skiers, employees, local towns, potential partners, and investors.”
Schmidt’s LinkedIn profile lists him as the director of finance for a North Carolina industrial lubricants company with three years experience working for Kraft Heinz and VF Corp.
A Vail Resorts spokeswoman said the letter was the first time the company had heard of Late Apex or received any correspondence from the investor.
“We engage frequently with our many different shareholders and value their feedback,” the spokeswoman said.
Unions say Vail Resorts is coming to the table, but it’s still rocky
Vail Resorts is laboring to repair its relationship with its workers and local communities.
Crested Butte lift mechanics said the company seems to be ready to negotiate as more people sign the 12-member union’s petition for increased pay and donate to the union’s strike fund.
“Coming into this latest meeting was night and day difference,” said Thomas Pearman, a five-year lift mechanic at Crested Butte Mountain and the president of the lift maintenance union, one of only two chairlift mechanics’ unions represented by the 1,100-member United Mountain Workers. “They were ready to negotiate this time. It feels like we are finally trying to work together and get a contract together pretty quickly. It’s looking like we will be able to get this solved at the table, and not go on strike.”
Last week, Keystone ski area’s unionized patrollers said the most recent negotiating session ended with a Vail Resorts representative saying that ski patrollers should not prioritize medical care for injured guests “and instead simply transport them off the mountain,” reads a Jan. 23 letter from the union seeking testimonies from anyone who has received care from Keystone ski patrollers who are required to be certified as emergency medical technicians.
Shannon Buhler, the vice president and general manager at Keystone, said in a Jan. 26 letter to employees that the patrol union was sharing “inaccurate information” about the negotiating session.
“Keystone resort is not questioning, nor have we ever questioned, the need or value for patrollers to have advanced medical care skills,” reads Buhler’s letter. “Keystone resort is not removing specialty team skills-based pay and individualized skills-based pay for patrollers. This is an important element of the patrol wage structure for the company, and there has been no discussion about taking it away.”
Jim Clarke is a regular Keystone skier. Last weekend he was skiing with his 12-year-old son heading down to the Outback chair on the backside of the ski area when he came across a group trying to roll over a man who was facedown on the Spillway cat track.
Clarke, who was once a volunteer ski patroller at Washington’s Alpental ski area, quickly assessed that the older skier was not breathing and had a weak pulse.
Clarke and another man began CPR as others called 911.
Soon, a team of ski patrollers arrived with an automated external defibrillator. One patroller cut away the man’s clothes. Another inserted a breathing tube down his trachea. Another began administering shocks with the defibrillator. A fourth patroller inserted an IV needle into the man’s arm to deliver medicine.
“It was four people knowing their shit and keeping this guy alive. It was an impressive sight,” Clarke said. “There is no way that guy would have survived had they not had those qualified people right there. I’m 100% sure of that.”
Clarke said he followed up with the fallen skier’s family and the man, who was flown on an emergency helicopter from the backside of Keystone to a hospital, survived his cardiac incident.
“I can’t imagine that guy would have survived if it was about putting him in a toboggan and traversing the resort,” Clarke said. “At the end of the day, do you want to ski the backside of Keystone if the only chance for survival if something happens is holding on in a toboggan until you get to medical care at the front of the ski area? I’m not sure I’d ski back there if that was my only option.”