The Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association claims the resort is relying on around 50 replacement patrollers and safety staff as more than 200 union members strike over wages and unfair labor practice claims.
Union business manager Quinn Graves said Park City Mountain would likely have more terrain open, following this weekend’s snowstorm, if striking patrollers were working.
“Since we just don’t have the staffing up there, it’s really tough to get more terrain open,” Graves said.
Park City Mountain Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Deirdra Walsh said the resort has received about 84 inches of snow so far, falling short of its five-year average of 110 inches for this time of year.
“Just only a few days ago, there was very little snow across a lot of these hills,” Walsh said. “Each and every day, we assess the terrain and we take a look at what’s feasible. What can we open? And we open the terrain that is safe to open with the people that we have.”
In the last few days, Park City Mountain has removed the open terrain metrics from its online mountain report. Ski Utah shows 18% of the resort’s terrain is open. It also lists nearby Deer Valley Resort with more than 50% of terrain open. However, Park City Mountain is more than three times larger than Deer Valley.
The time between Christmas and New Year’s Day is historically one of the busiest periods at local ski resorts.
Along with long lift lines, Graves said the union has also received reports of long waits for skiers and riders who are injured on the mountain.
“It sounds like, to us, that there have been non-medically trained personnel who have been pre-screening injuries, which is creating a delay in actual medical first-response time,” Graves said. “That’s a huge issue, because… there’s this thing called the ‘golden hour’ in prehospital medical care, and this is the idea that we get folks off the mountain into definitive care within that hour time frame to get the best care possible. And that’s proving to be very hard with the lack of staffing.”
Park City Mountain denied that claim. Walsh said safety operations remain as usual.
“There have been no changes to our incident response protocols as a result of the union’s actions,” the resort’s VP and COO said. “Safety remains our top priority. Nearby mountain safety team members often report to the site of an incident to help manage the situation while patrol is responding.”
New Yorker Greg Moonves, who has skied for decades, came to Park City Mountain for a five-day holiday trip. Moonves said he had no idea ski patrollers were on strike until talking to a few locals.
“There’s a lot of people saying, ‘I’m never going to come back. I’m never getting an Epic Pass again,’” Moonves said. “It’s business, it’s complicated. Do they bust the union? Does it proliferate? I understand all of those things. But at the end of the day, no visitor cares about that. We spent a lot of money to come here, as did everyone else, to have a good time skiing with our families. And at the end of the day, they’re not providing the product that they claim they’re providing.”
Moonves said the union’s request for higher wages seems reasonable.
“We’re getting like no runs in per day, and it’s just like a really frustrating experience,” he said. “When we do get in runs, they’re like relatively dangerous, because the trails are just packed with very little ski patrol… Anything about the snow is just an excuse, it’s purely a staffing issue.”
Park City Mountain officials and members of the patrol union have returned to mediation sooner than expected. The negotiations will continue Dec. 30 and Dec. 31 in the hopes of reaching an agreement.
