From corporate burr to community asset

Editor’s note: In the last of a two-part series on the history of Aspen’s ski patrol union, a dramatic loss of benefits leads to the formation of the Aspen Professional Ski Patrol Association in 1986. As APSPA nears its 40th anniversary, the separate United Mountain Workers CWA local 7781 represents other ski patrols and mountain groups.

To visitors and the community, the Aspen ski patrols could be the last stronghold of the inscrutable Aspen mystique. As the backstop of skiing, the patrol has always been there to sort out difficulties, maintain safety, manage crowded slopes, mitigate avalanche risk, conduct side-country rescues, evacuate lifts, provide medical care and mountain evacuation, and document accidents. In fact, every day the ski patrol does its job well, it saves the company millions of dollars in litigation. 

While numerous management groups with varying corporate views have rotated through the Aspen Skiing Co. between 1985 and 2024, the local ski patrols have remained a stable fixture, even as expectations climb from swelling, litigious crowds, and resort managers bent on opening more advanced terrain.

From Jan. 11, 1947, when the old Number One chairlift first spun on Aspen Mountain, the ski patrol enjoyed powder and Halcyon days, punctuated by organized labor disputes during the early years of the company. The first was in 1959, followed by the Aspen Mountain Employee Association of 1963-64, and then the attempt to pit the Teamsters against DRC Brown in 1971-72 — as detailed in part one of this series, “You fall, we haul.”

But from 1986 through 1996, the SkiCo’s bargaining tactics with the Aspen Professional Ski Patrol Association as a union were adversarial. Under two different SkiCo presidents from 1996 on, management shifted its view to acceptance of APSPA, while recognizing the benefits of the patrols’ evolved professionalism. Both sides got to know and trust each other. Negotiations became sincere. Multi-year contracts were forged and both sides compromised.  

As an early union negotiator, officer, and APSPA president in the 1990s, I was involved in the formation and refinement of the contract between SkiCo and the union during the era of this story. As a negotiator up through 2016, much of this story comes from first-hand experiences.

Looking back on Aspen’s winter economy of trading on its long-held tag as “a real ski town,” renown began accelerating in the 1980s. Local shops gave way to fluffy boutiques and galleries as the cost of living ratcheted up a few more notches. The diaspora of rank-and-file Aspen residents moving downvalley began. Concurrently, ownership of the ski company reshuffled at least four times in the late 1970s through early 1980s, promoting vice president Jerry Blann to president after SkiCo chief Tom Richardson quit in 1982, rather than take benefits away from “his employees.” 

This all came to head between 1986 and 1987 after APSPA made ski patrol history with both sides agreeing to a tentative first contract, following a hasty Christmas Eve negotiation. That meeting followed informational picketing by APSPA at the Dec. 20, 1986, grand opening of the new Silver Queen Gondola, in front of throngs of tourists and dignitaries.

In 1985, Blann, a former University of Denver ski team racer and business graduate, took away benefits from ski company employees to please new owners. After spending $50,000 on the incendiary “Hewitt Study”— developed by a Minneapolis firm —to compare SkiCo benefits with other major western ski areas, SkiCo officials said employees enjoyed a 27% higher benefit package than others, the Jan. 30, 1986, Aspen Times reported. 

Out-of-town ownership of the hometown Aspen Skiing Corporation began when 20th Century Fox bought the Ski Corp in 1978 for $48.6 million, according to a Dec. 17, 1986, story in the Aspen Daily News. The sellers were a tight-knit group of original stockholders. In 1981, a conglomerate led by Denver oilman Marvin Davis — Miller-Klutznick-Davis-Gray Company — bought 20th Century Fox, which included the Ski Corp. They then renamed the corporation as the Aspen Skiing Co. Shortly after, bottom-line corporate thinking began to eclipse the value of employee retention and benefits. 

Then in 1985, MKDG sold 50% of the company to the Crown family of Chicago. Tom Klutznick emerged as the hands-on managing partner of the SkiCo, becoming a new face about town in the glossy magazine party photos, while he raked the company ranks for savings. As company plans matured, I and other ski patrollers then experienced his unfolding perspective, that long-term employees cost more and turnover saved money.

Blann implemented cuts derived from the Hewitt Study, along with a new “pay for performance” plan without skills recognition, which gave raises — some as low as $.05 per hour — based upon season-ending employee evaluations rather than across the board as before. At the time, the pay scale started at $6.05/hour for most departments.

Pay for performance received mixed acceptance, with employees saying the plan seeded competitive unrest in the ranks. Later, after APSPA had signed its first contract in January 1987, patrol negotiators argued that management’s job was to address employee shortcomings as they occurred, rather than wait until the end of the year to add up deficiencies and subtract that from what should be a cost-of-living raise.

Blann also eliminated 850 seasonal employees from the company’s profit-sharing plan; took away the $300 per season equipment allowance for patrollers; dramatically raised year-round health insurance premiums for family plans and 10th-year seasonal employees; and cut overtime, while allowing part-time patrollers.

At this juncture, the adage in union lore that “unions form because of a failure of management at the time,” found solid footing, fueled also by reliable inside information that in 1986 Blann received an $80,000 bonus for his scalpel work. While resident ski patrollers were trying to make ends meet with changing management groups, a meticulous and soft-spoken Snowmass patroller, L.J. Erspamer, first organized the Aspen Professional Ski Patrol Association in 1985. As the local papers ate up the unfolding drama, he said in the Jan. 30, 1986, Aspen Times of the patrol, “We are the heart and the backbone of this company.” 

Aspen Mountain patroller Doug Driskell and Gary O’Neill of Buttermilk joined with Erspamer of Snowmass. Together they successfully rallied their mountains to vote on March 24, 1986, in a National Labor Relations Board election for APSPA to become a certified union. The vote was 125-25 in favor of unionization.

Breckenridge, with 55 members — then also part of the SkiCo — voted to become the Breckenridge Professional Ski Patrol Association. Aspen Highlands ski patrol would not become part of the union until after 1994, when the then Crown-run SkiCo purchased Aspen Highlands — after gaining full ownership of SkiCo from MKDG in 1993.

‘Missing Link Committee’

Making the Hewitt Study public became a rallying cry as Blann jockeyed with APSPA founders in a series of articles between 1985 and 1987 in the Aspen Daily News and The Aspen Times. The SkiCo recalled Dick Moore of the Mountain States Employers Council for what was essentially round four of the Aspen ski patrol’s historical attempts to unionize. 

At the start of the 1985-86 ski season, just-hatched APSPA turned to attorney Ashley Anderson about starting a bargaining unit to approach the SkiCo. Soon after, an anonymous group called the “Missing Link Committee,” who feared company retribution, sent out a letter to patrol addressing Blann’s benefit-stripping bombshell that had debuted that season. While seeking NLRB protection, they elected mountain representatives and a board of directors. 

Moore, who had advocated for the company in the three earlier organizing attempts, danced the same old Macarena when the SkiCo refused to recognize the new APSPA bargaining group. Blann maintained that the benefit cuts were necessary to remain competitive and striking patrollers would be fired. That attitude modified after the March 24 union certification, when the SkiCo was compelled to bargain in good faith. Subsequently, APSPA filed four charges with the NLRB against the company for not doing so.

APSPA called other ski patrols and put together an alternative study of wages and benefits. This exposed false claims in the Hewitt representations, while SkiCo officials repeated quotes from the study as justification for cuts. Suddenly detonating that fire, in late 1985, the Wall Street Journal reported that a leading HR consulting and outsourcing company — the same Hewitt Associates of Minneapolis — built a business model on writing investigative reports to prove predetermined premises for companies. 

Retired APSPA pioneer Driskell said recently from his safe harbor in Fruita, “The SkiCo quoted the Hewitt Study all the time as justification, but when the WSJ story came out it showed the study was bogus.” Driskell recollected how a red-faced Moore pounded the table yelling “NO! NO! NO!” to APSPA’s referencing the WSJ article. At another negotiation, Moore recounted his vacation scuba diving among swimming sharks, and negotiator Wayne “Hippie” Hyrup said, “So, out of professional courtesy the sharks didn’t bite you?”

Moore tried to put a shine on the SkiCo’s stubborn stance, while rallies and benefits about town for the ski patrol showed widespread support. “We think it’s better to talk informally rather than have a confrontational union situation,” Moore said in the Jan. 24, 1986, Aspen Daily News. Erspamer countered, “Past efforts to try to speak with management at the ski company had not been successful.” 

“We [patrol] have been here since before the present owners and the current management, and we’re going to be here a lot longer afterward,” Erspamer said. This is the case today, as APSPA approaches its 40th anniversary in 2026. Since then, wages and benefits have risen for APSPA members, tangentially accruing to better benefits for other Ski Co employees, though patrol remains the only division with a union. 

Negotiations proved to be haphazard throughout the summer of 1986, with APSPA hoping to have a first contract before the Thanksgiving opening. But the SkiCo delayed and resisted. With the company refusing to counter-offer APSPA proposals, grievance filings became the tool to bring them back to the bargaining table.

Eleventh hour

In early November 1986, a SkiCo negotiator warned APSPA that “the gloves are coming off,” dashing hope of a Thanksgiving contract. SkiCo claimed that APSPA was seeking a 70% increase in benefits, which a company spokesperson was unable to break down. “That’s grossly exaggerated and ridiculous,” Erspamer said in the Nov. 24, 1986, Daily News. Negotiator Driskell said, “They inflated every item until they could come up with 70%. It’s actually 10.9%.” 

The issues were to forge a first contract that dealt with workplace rules and wages, reimbursements for skills classes, insurance eligibility, equipment allowance and loss of the profit-sharing plan. The American Federation of Teachers came in to help negotiate for APSPA. 

In a climactic Nov. 30 negotiation, before walking out, a ski SkiCo negotiator said “there was no point in further discussions. You have our bottom line,” Driskell recently recollected in a phone call. This included a refusal to bring in a federal mediator before informational picketing was to begin at the grand opening of the new $3.5 million gondola ($8.6 million today). 

As the SkiCo played its hardline card, the gondola opened three days before the Dec. 20 gala Saturday dedication. On the actual first day, stalwart Ed Colby of the Aspen Mountain patrol on his day off was the lone picketer by the Little Nell parking lot. 

Colby, who had been a striker during the 1971-72 patrol/Teamsters strike, said in the Dec 19, 1986, Aspen Daily News, “I feel something, but it’s not silly. It’s lonesome. Today it’s kind of a shakedown cruise.” He added, “Ninety-five percent of the people slap you on the back and say ‘great job,’ 4% look away and 1% say you’re a jerk.”  

Three days later, some 30 patrol demonstrators with picket signs and leaflets at the Little Nell base caught the attention of SkiCo bigwigs, as Aspen Mayor Bill Stirling escorted Colorado Gov. Roy Romer through the scene. Aspen grande dame Elizabeth Paepcke and Aspen Ski Corp co-founder Friedl Pfeifer rode the first cabin. Pfeifer had also been up the first chair on Aspen’s first Lift One on its Jan. 11, 1947, opening dedication. 

A spectacle was not what the SkiCo wanted. APSPA announced that more informational picketing — not striking — would continue on chosen days. With that, SkiCo blinked and agreed to meet with APSPA on Christmas Eve 1986. With some issues left tabled, the meeting led to the first contract days later, good through Oct. 31, 1987. 

Though Blann pulled benefits from the rank and file in 1985, Aspen housing and food prices were still within reach for the wage earner. The Cooper Street Pier had its standby beer, burger, and fries for $5.95. The ADN classifieds offered a “sunny house in Aspen, 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 2-car garage, large yard, $1,500 a month,” or, for sale, with no agent’s picture, “a top-floor corner 2-bedroom apt, pets allowed, $95,000.”

Bell curve raises

That next fall smoother negotiations yielded a new contract, but when the contract came due again in 1988 negotiations snagged after Blann resigned and Bob Maynard from Keystone came in as the new SkiCo president. Genial and preppy, with a gladhanded manner, APSPA found that he might say one thing and do the opposite. 

As part of the ski patrol union negotiating team then, and soon after as union president, I found that his most disruptive tactic while president between 1988 to 1996 was to switch SkiCo negotiators on us often. We would then have to backtrack and rehash our positions to new SkiCo replacements who didn’t have the authority to make decisions.

In 1988, wages ranged from $6.75 at the bottom to $10.15 at top, and SkiCo gave employees a $.10 hourly raise that winter. Without a wage-range hike in three years, longer-term patrollers were wage capped at $10.15, no matter their skills. Raises were still tied to pay for performance on a 1-5 scale, along with a SkiCo attempt to tie health insurance premiums to performance. With the profit-sharing plan already cashed out to seasonals, leaving only management with accounts, APSPA pressed for a new retirement plan. Several years later, Maynard installed the 401K plan for all employees because of a tax advantage. 

The company fixed a sum for raises each year and imposed a secret bell curve that managers had to apply. APSPA asked if, theoretically, all patrollers performed at level five would all patrol get the highest raise; no, was the reply. So for a while patrol settled for what the SkiCo gave all employees, while making other small contract gains, such as the return of an equipment allowance.

During that era, APSPA struggled with a series of difficult SkiCo negotiators, most notably the new Snowmass mountain manager Jon Reveal (later Aspen mountain manager, and then operations manager), and Bill Hanish, the human resources boss, both of whom Maynard brought in from Keystone to confront the union. From our perspective, their goals appeared to be to bust the union and weed out higher paid employees. 

One culling tactic was to not agree to any leaves of absence. If a veteran patroller requested or needed a year off, he/she had to go through the annual patrol tryout clinic that next fall with no guarantee of rehire, despite seasoned skills. Leaves of absence with return to the same position and benefits became a yearly bargaining issue that finally passed after Pat O’Donnell came in as president in 1996. 

Small gains prevailed, but one major APSPA victory in 1993, after demonstrating at the gondola during the annual 24 Hours of Aspen race (a headliner wherein ski pairs rode the gondola for 24 hours and skied as much vertical as possible under top-to-bottom klieg lights and fanfare), stands out as a pivotal victory for all ski company employees. 

Terminate fleas, not patrollers

With an expired contract, two issues stalled negotiations as the 1993-1994 season unrolled. First to be reversed by the SkiCo was the plan to reduce seasonal employees’ health-plan coverage to $50,000 maximum per year from $1 million. Patrollers continued to receive unequal raises based upon performance levels, not skill advancement. Coupled with a 5% equipment allowance raise, wages had inched to $7.80, ranging up to $15 for lead people, with long-termers higher.

But in intense negotiations, HR head Hanisch wanted to insert into the new contract that all patrollers would be “seasonally terminated” and then selectively “seasonally rehired” the following year. Rather than being job-attached for the next year as before, everyone was to be terminated, aka fired and maybe rehired. Things began to boil when all seasonal employees received a letter before the 1993-1994 season saying these terms would apply the following year.

This allowed the SkiCo to potentially not rehire union leaders and cherry-pick employees. In the summer of 1992, Little Nell hotel employees attempted to unionize in a failed NLRB vote. In 1993, the ski school tried to organize but failed in their vote, while the SkiCo countered with “employee groups” and “issue groups”— called “rump unions” in labor lexicon. 

APSPA reminded Hanisch that seasonal termination and seasonal rehire could not unilaterally be put in the APSPA contract per NLRB rules, but had to be negotiated. As Hanisch pressed the issue, 25-plus APSPA demonstrators demonstrated by the gondola plaza during the 24-hour race that December. Signs read variously, “SkiCo unfair,” “Give us a fair contract,” and “Terminate fleas, not patrollers.” 

Ultimately, the town supported the patrol again, once the issue was explained in ADN coverage during November and December of 1993. The local Fraternal Order of Police and some members of the city council and county commissioners stepped up in public support of APSPA. 

Hanisch then rebutted publicly in the Dec. 3, 1993, Aspen Daily News, elaborating how seasonal termination was written in the unemployment compensation laws of the state. But APSPA had done its homework and set up for a slam dunk. In a dramatic showdown at the next negotiation, which included mountain managers, Director of Operations Reveal and HR’s Hanisch, APSPA listened to them claim that seasonal termination was written in Colorado unemployment law.

But prior to the meeting, we, as APSPA leaders, had acquired a copy of the unemployment laws and spoke with a supervisor at the Department of Labor and Employment in Denver who clarified that seasonal termination was nowhere to be found in the unemployment laws. “Termination means fired,” he said, or “you’re laid off until rehire.” The department only recognized “quit, layoff, and fire,” the supervisor said.

We then laid phone transcripts and copies of the laws on the table along with the supervisor’s phone number, exposing the invalidity that had been presented to the public and employees. As a negotiator, I witnessed an awkward silence fall, and Hanisch’s red-faced team screeched back their chairs, requesting a private caucus. Some 30 minutes later they came back to the table and we negotiated “seasonal separation” as the new contract language. This meant that patrollers were not fired at the end of each season.

Soon after, seasonal termination became quietly defunct for all seasonal employees in the company; APSPA had helped them avoid a DOGE-like weeding. The clause, “Employees will be seasonally separated when their work ends at the conclusion of each ski or summer season and re-employed at the commencement of the next season based on the needs of the operation,” still stands in the current contract.

With their jobs secure, the cost of living in 1994 hovered within a manageable range. Aspen still had McDonalds, where “An American Meal” cost $2.19 for a hamburger, fries and coke, while Bentley’s offered a “30-item salad bar” for $4.95. A haircut at the Aspen Barbershop cost $12. The ADN classifieds listed for rent a “Sunny, one-bedroom apt., cable, W/D, fireplace, balcony, $900,” and a “Pitkin Park Place condo at the ABC, 2-bed, 1.5-bath, $143,000,” for sale.

Another squall, then smoother sailing

One more attempt at ridding the patrol of APSPA officers curiously occurred just three months later on March 10, 1994, in a dictum from then Mountain Operations Manager Reveal. On that day, the universally-respected Aspen Mountain Patrol Director Jons Milner was removed from his job for fabricated reasons, after refusing to fire APSPA officers on the Aspen Mountain patrol.

Unannounced, Reveal walked into the morning meeting at the bottom of the 1A lift, just before we were about to ride up the hill. To everyone’s disbelief, Reveal summarily fired Milner in front of his loyal ski patrol. That same morning, a more willing replacement director was appointed, causing mutiny in the ranks. After realizing that a square peg did not fit a round hole, that director resigned from patrol in several days. 

The following season Jef “One-f-Jef” Aldrich, brought in from Arapahoe Basin, became patrol director, briefly, before Aspen Mountain veteran Don “Hump” Hillmuth, a steady hand, became the director.

With that, negotiations between APSPA and the SkiCo carried tensions up until Maynard retired in 1996. Pat O’Donnell then became the new SkiCo president. He replaced the adversarial posture, ushering in an era of acceptance and mutual goals at the bargaining table. He installed local attorneys Boots Ferguson and Dave Bellack, along with new HR director Jim Laing, as negotiators. Then, after meeting with a select patrol committee and separately with Reveal, O’Donnell decided it was time for the company and Reveal to part ways. 

With cooperative negotiators on both sides, resolution, candidness, fairness and friendships evolved over the long term. Multiple-year contracts resulted. The goal was to complete the contract in time for the first paycheck of the new ski season. During that period, up through O’Donnell’s retirement in 2006, and through Mike Kaplan’s tenure as CEO and president until his retirement in 2023, multiple contract articles that still stand were added or refined.  

Some important articles in approximate chronology are: a 401K with expanded options; grievance procedures; equipment allowance increases; expanded wage caps; skills-based pay incentives; leaves of absence with rehire; a drug policy; expense stipends for medical training (EMT, EMT-P); summer ranger and bike patrol inclusion; performance and wellness bonuses; company-paid out-of-bounds rescue with Pitkin County workman’s comp coverage; and regular cost of living allowances.

As the 40th anniversary of APSPA and the SkiCo signing their first contract approaches in 2026, other successful ski patrols and lift mechanic unions have formed at other ski areas. For many, the long-term durability of APSPA has set an example for other patrols across the West to organize successfully. 

United Mountain Workers, CWA local 7781

The first successful ski patrol union was formed in Crested Butte in 1978, though Aspen Mountain was the first to organize in 1959 and again in 1963-64, gaining the first NLRB recognition in 1963 (see part one of this series). After APSPA formalized in 1986, other patrols in the west followed suit. The Steamboat Ski Patrol unionized in 1998. The Canyons organized in 2001. Other patrols and lift mechanic groups followed, gaining momentum between 2019 and 2024, as the cost of living and housing skyrocketed in mountain towns.   

Today, while other patrols and resort workers consider unionizing, the current duopoly in the ski industry is Vail Resorts Inc. and Alterra Mountain Co. Vail owns and operates 42 mountain resorts in four countries, of which five ski patrols and two lift mechanics groups (Crested Butte and Park City) are unionized in the U.S. Recently, Keystone ski patrol, part of Vail Resorts, signed a new contract. With the recent addition of Arapahoe Basin, whose patrol just unionized, Alterra owns 18 resorts, with three unionized. 

In 2003, the United Professional Ski Patrol Association formed under the Communications Workers of America, beginning with Steamboat Springs, Crested Butte, and The Canyons. In 2015, The Canyons merged with neighbor Park City, with PC voting to join UPSPA. Telluride, Stevens Pass and others joined a few years later. 

In 2024, UPSPA rebranded as the United Mountain Workers, CWA local 7781. The UMW website (unitedmountainworkers.org) touts “1,100 essential workers from 16 distinct units at 13 ski resorts. Our membership includes ski patrollers, bike patrollers, and ski lift mechanics and electricians working in technical, hazardous, and under-compensated roles.” 

Max Magill, president of the UMW said in an email, “First, UMW is committed to representing its members and creating a more equitable ski industry. We get new interest from groups all the time wanting to improve their working conditions.” About housing, he said, “UMW can work with local governments and resorts to create more affordable housing. There is so much money in modern resort towns, and the unchecked increase in nightly rental properties. Our local communities should back the workforce that keeps their towns desirable for visitors.” 

Still fresh in many minds is the past December 2024 spectacle of Vail Resorts’ shellacking by UMW member Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association during its 12-day strike to successfully increase the starting wage from $21 to $23 per hour. The resulting agreement also addressed “wage compression” by expanding the pay scale on both ends, with veteran patrollers gaining an average of $7, while starting pay rose $2.

Park City union vice president and eight-year patroller Emmet Murray, who helped organize the strike, said in a phone call that it took months to prepare for their Dec. 27 walkout, preapproved by 98% of their members. “The stars aligned over Christmas weekend” he said, “and over 2 feet of new snow kept lots of terrain closed because replacements couldn’t do the avalanche-mitigation routes. Then Vail got crushed by the media when TV and The New York Times and Wall Street Journal got on the story, and Vail’s stock crashed $400 million.”

With that, contributions to their GoFundMe strike fund came in from everywhere and jumped to $300,000, enough to pay the approximately 200 striking patrollers their regular wages, Murray recounted. On the picket line he reckoned there was 95% public support. Local restaurants brought them free food and hot coffee.

Stunned, Vail resumed negotiations on Jan. 3, and the two sides tooled a contract. After PCPSPA members reviewed the agreement, 100% of those who voted checked yes in favor of their new 5-year contract. Ultimately, UMW would like to see all their members’ contracts come due at similar times, making a stronger bargaining hand for all.

“It was a day I’ll never forget,” Murray said, “I was so proud of everyone and happy when we went back to work. We know our job and we worked hard to get the mountain back in shape.” 

Current APSPA negotiations

Though APSPA doesn’t rule out associating the 200-member independent union with the UMW in the future, much depends on the ongoing 2025 contract negotiations with SkiCo, which as of 2023 operates under a new superstructure of management.   

Before the death of hands-on SkiCo managing partner Jim Crown in June 2023, the Crown family was restructuring their holdings. First, they partnered with travel-and-leisure KSL Partners ($23 billion in assets) to form the Denver-based Alterra Mountain Co. in 2018, though SkiCo remains independent. Then in 2023, “Aspen One,” a new umbrella company for the Aspen-associated assets, made its debut.

Now, while reporting to the Crowns, CEO of Aspen One Dave Tanner oversees the Aspen Skiing Co., Aspen Hospitality, and Aspen Collection (formerly ASPENX), each of which have their own sub-CEOs. One of those sub-CEOs is Geoff Buchheister of the Aspen Skiing Co., who replaced Mike Kaplan.

Following custom, when APSPA’s contracts with the SkiCo — some 30 historically — come up for renewal, both sides exchange lists of contract articles they want to open for negotiation. As in the card game go fish, both try to calculate what the other has in hand before asking to open hot-button articles.

In the interest of full disclosure, as an attendee offering a historical perspective at the opening meeting on April 8 to negotiate a new contract, my role there was not to report on the details of negotiations. However, a mutual air of collegiality and a commitment to get the job done prevailed.  

Throughout the ongoing negotiations this spring, Tanner will oversee SkiCo’s Buchheister, Aspen One’s human resources senior vice president Lisa Flynn and the SkiCo attorneys. This chain of command on the SkiCo side has the option to lean pragmatic or adverse, while the APSPA bargaining team and their attorney will sit well-prepared. 

Though not yet discussed at the bargaining table, APSPA’s major issue is a pay scale to meet the disproportionate high cost of Aspen living, arguably the highest of any mountain towns. Before the April 8 meeting, APSPA president Luke Demuth would only say, “We will ask for a significant raise.”

Currently, rookie patrollers start at $24 and rise to $27 per hour, hinging on their on-hill knowledge. Others with specialty skills or tenure earn higher, many having accrued handsome raises over time.

By comparison, recently posted classifieds advertised a front-desk position at Grease Monkey in Glenwood at $25-$35 per hour, an Aspen Times early-morning newspaper deliverer at $30 per hour and lawn-care workers at “$20-30 hourly, bonuses $400-$3,000.”

Demuth also said he wants to discuss “wage compression.” This situation occurs when the top and bottom of the pay scale do not rise, while the middle ranks have opportunity for progressive raises. Bundling “skill sets” such as advanced medical, cable rider, blaster license and snowmobile license, etc., can offer a compression-raise remedy. Compensation may also come in the form of benefits, such as housing, transportation and equipment allowance. 

He later capsulized, “The ski patrol stands alone in the industry, and APSPA wants to work collaboratively with the SkiCo. Our asks are small if you break them down as a proportion of the capital improvements spent in recent years,” but with the new SkiCo structure, “they talk about costs.”

After the April 8 meeting, Tanner reiterated in an email, “We’ve had a long, productive relationship with APSPA for nearly 40 years, and our patrol teams across all four mountains continue to perform at the highest level and are critical to our collective safety. We have always, and always will, work in good faith with all our employees, especially in conversations currently underway with the APSPA. Our intent and priority is to continue to be leaders in the industry when it comes to wages and benefits for all employees.”

But, Tanner cautioned, “We must also acknowledge the pressure on the ski industry. Inflation remains high across the cost structure, and the business is high-fixed cost and capital intensive. This, coupled with stagnant visitation growth and a range of emerging macroeconomic pressures, are important considerations as we go through negotiations and work collectively to secure the future of Aspen Snowmass and our community.”

Overall, the growing number of ski patrol unions are looking toward a more skills-based model to increase wage ranges. Where once ski companies could fill their ski patrol ranks with volunteers and less-costly short-termers, economics and over-litigious realities have brought corporate acknowledgement to the predicated need for professional ski patrols.

This requires a fair benefits package and retention of well-rounded patrollers who live in the local community. Necessarily, ski patrolling has become comparable to municipal services such as firefighters and policemen.

Even as patrol unions gain ground, the post-pandemic wealth-migration and mushrooming billionaire phenomenon in mountain towns has snowballed the cost of living into a bizarre disproportionate realm relative to wages and other benefits. 

Today, in Aspen, a Tripadvisor review of the J-Bar reads, “$100 for two burgers, one ice tea, water.” The Ajax Tavern at the base of Aspen Mountain offers a Wagyu cheeseburger for $30, truffle fries an extra $9. A modest Glenwood Springs house lists for “$1.2 million, 3 beds, 2 baths,” while a monster home in Aspen can fetch near $50 million. Good luck finding something in between.