Park City Ski Patrol Strike Against Vail Resorts Continues
More than two feet of fresh snow fell on Park City, Utah, this past week, perfectly timed for the throngs of holiday skiers gathering at Park City Mountain, the largest ski resort in the United States.But instead of experiencing a powder high, skiers and snowboarders encountered long lift lines, limited terrain and widespread frustration brought on by a strike by ski patrollers.“Five minutes of bliss for 50 minutes of waiting in line,” said one Park City skier on Instagram.The Park City Professional Ski Patrollers Association, representing 204 ski patrollers and mountain safety personnel, went on strike on Dec.
27 against Vail Resorts, which owns Park City Mountain.The ski patrollers are demanding a $2 increase in their hourly base wage, from $21 to $23.
The union presented its proposal in September with the goal of coming to an agreement before the ski season, but Vail did not agree, leading the patrollers to strike during the busy holiday period.Vail Resorts has said that it increased patrollers’ wages by more than 50 percent over the past four seasons.“We are proud of the significant investments we have made into all of our employees, including patrol, which have far outpaced inflation,” said Bill Rock, president of Vail Resorts Mountain Division, in a statement on Friday.Without enough patrollers to open trails, respond to accidents and do avalanche mitigation, around one fourth of Park City’s trails are currently open.Normally more than 100 patrollers cover Park City’s 7,300 skiable acres, but the union said that just 30 to 35 patrollers are on the mountain, many of them supervisors or patrollers brought in from other Vail ski areas.“We deeply regret that this is having any level of impact on the guest experience and are grateful to our thousands of employees who are working hard every day to enable the experience at Park City Mountain and open the terrain that we can safely open,” Mr.
Rock said in the statement.We are having trouble retrie...