The local patrol union wants Vail to raise the patrollers’ base wage from $21 to $23 per hour across all resorts to adjust for nationwide inflation. The group also wants Vail to increase compensation for more experienced patrollers.
Vail’s counteroffer includes less than a 0.5% wage increase and no increases to benefits.
Park City Mountain has said the average wage for ski patrollers across Vail’s resorts far outpaces the rate of inflation.
Ski patrol wages trending up nationally
National trends show an uptick in patroller compensation as well, according to the National Ski Areas Association. The group analyzes and distributes industry statistics from the more than 300 alpine resorts it represents. Those resorts account for 90% of ski and snowboard visits nationwide.
Its director of marketing and communications, Tonya Riley, told KPCW ski areas do not share specific wage data. However, she said patrol wages across the country remain far above state and federal minimum wage requirements.
Riley said entry-level patroller wages have increased by 70% nationally since 2019. For experienced patrollers, wages increased by 49% over the last five years. Riley noted compensation varies by region: the Rocky Mountain region has higher wages than the East, Southeast or Midwest regions. She said many resorts also consider the high cost of housing in mountain communities when establishing base pay.
Vail Resorts increased entry-level patrol wages in March 2022, a factor she said has contributed to the growth trend. The company raised the starting wage to $21 an hour for all of its resorts across the country. She said many nearby ski areas followed suit.
Kari Brandt is the president of Women of Patrol, a nonprofit aiming to promote, connect and support women working as ski patrollers. She agreed companies owning a large number of ski areas, like Vail and Alterra, drive patroller wage trends.
After Vail raised base pay, Alterra boosted wages as well. Brandt said that pushed independent ski areas and companies owning fewer ski areas to increase wages to stay competitive.
“In order to compete and actually be able to hire employees, we had to follow suit,” she said. “It allows us to use those industry trends to also drive our wages higher, to provide more of a livable wage in these areas that are traditionally higher costs to live in.”
“$23 still feels low” for ski patrol base wage
Brandt said a patroller’s starting wage is typically $1 per hour more than front-line employees, like ticket checkers, food service staff and parking attendants.
Even with the increasing trend, Brandt said current wages may not represent the work required of those employees. While it takes every department to make a resort successful, she said ski patrollers, snowcat operators and lift mechanics require more training and knowledge.
In patrol specifically, Brandt said staff must be proficient in 10 areas: medical care, skiing or snowboarding skills, toboggan handling, hill safety, risk management, rope rescue, avalanche science, avalanche rescue, avalanche mitigation and psychological first aid.
Ski patrol applicants must have a medical certification, which Brandt said is 80 to 120 hours of class work. When hired, staff need an additional 100 to 150 hours of training.
“So if you look at that compared to other jobs on the mountain, it's a significant amount of training hours and time and knowledge base that's required,” she said. “So the $1 an hour over other departments doesn't portray what is needed to be a ski patroller, and so with that diversity of skills, $23 still feels low, to be frank, but it's a place to start.”
Brandt said resorts are also losing patrollers after about five years as they move on to higher-paying jobs. This is right around the time they become an expert in the field.
She said patrollers can only get higher wages, usually going up to $30 an hour, and progress in the industry, if they become a supervisor. But even when someone is a highly-skilled patroller, they sometimes don’t have the right leadership skills or just want to remain a frontline patroller.
“We need to get better at providing those long-term opportunities for somebody to just be a frontline patroller to their highest capacity, just like the fire department does,” Brandt said. “You can retire from the fire department as an engineer or as a paramedic and make a livable wage. Not everybody has to become a captain to make a living doing that career.”
Resorts are increasingly acknowledging the value of retaining long-term, experienced patrollers and mountain safety staff, but Brandt said here’s still a long way to go.
Ski patrol unions see growth across US
The Utah News Dispatch reports there’s a growing trend in ski patrol unionization. While unions represent roughly 7.6% of all ski patrollers, that is a marked increase since 2021, when around 5.5% of patrollers were represented by a union.
“I'm pretty neutral on the topic, but where I have understanding of that increase is there's a lot of patrols have tried to have these conversations with high-up management and the decision-makers, and haven't felt heard,” Brandt said.
She said that’s likely driven the increase in unionization; patrollers and mountain safety staff feel they can only effect change through a union representative.
As for the Park City Mountain ski patrol union, it will continue to bargain with Vail until a new agreement is reached. The next bargaining session is Monday, Dec. 16. Both sides will follow the previous contract until then.
Park City Mountain Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Deirdra Walsh previously told KPCW “there are no impacts — and will be no impacts — to mountain operations” during the negotiations.
