“Is it just me, or do some of the lefties look older this season?” asked my husband as we rode a chairlift at Snowmass, in Colorado — our local resort — a couple of days after Christmas. I reminded him that during the holidays, the Aspen Skiing Co executive team comes out to Snowmass and its other three ski areas to drive shuttles, work at on-mountain restaurants and, yes, help load lifts.
But this time, the usually morale-boosting “we’re all in this together” gesture was a necessity, as the company’s mountains, like those throughout ski country, faced hiring shortfalls and a surge of omicron-driven Covid cases.
Having executives chip in “was not only a goodwill gesture, but it definitely helped with staffing levels,” said Jim Laing, chief human resources officer at Aspen Skiing Co.
The company’s hiring has been down about 7 per cent this winter, and at one point it had 275 employees out sick on one day. “We didn’t shut down a restaurant, a shop or a lift,” he said.
Across the US, ski areas both big and small have been scrambling to keep lifts spinning, terrain open and crowds of pandemic-weary skiers happy and fed.
“Every resort in the country is experiencing some level of staffing shortages,” said Doug Fish, president and founder of the Indy Pass, which gives access to 81 independently owned ski areas.
At Killington, in Vermont, where winter staff is down 20 per cent to 30 per cent, according to resort spokesperson Kristel Killary, only one of three base-area rental locations is open and some on-mountain restaurants offer limited service on weekdays.
Nearby, Magic Mountain, lacking enough ski patrollers to operate safely, didn’t open at all one day in early January. Likewise, New Hampshire’s Black Mountain was shuttered for five days because of a Covid outbreak among staff. Other New Hampshire resorts, including Attitash, Wildcat and Crotched Mountain, struggled to open much of their terrain.
At Crested Butte Mountain Resort, in Colorado, the T-bar that offers access to many of the resort’s signature steeps hasn’t operated yet this season, requiring guests to hike — skis or snowboard in hand — anywhere from 15 minutes to a half-hour or more to reach those slopes.
Staffing shortages forced Utah’s Alta to cancel its traditional New Year’s Eve torchlight parade and fireworks display. And Timberline at Mount Hood in Oregon didn’t open its Summit Pass area for two days in mid-January.
As guests have encountered these disruptions, some have taken to social media to air frustrations, and many have directed their comments towards Vail Resorts, which operates 37 ski areas and offers the multiresort Epic Pass. Epic Pass holders accuse Vail of using a flawed business model that exacerbates this year’s challenges.
The Instagram account Epic Lift Lines has nearly 36,000 followers, and an online petition to “hold Vail Resorts accountable,” launched in late December by Jeremy Rubingh, a Seattle skier frustrated with logistics at Vail-owned Stevens Pass, has been signed by almost 44,000 people. Complaints run the gamut from no parking spots and lengthy lift lines to a lack of open terrain and limited operating hours and services at Vail Resorts’ ski areas across the country.
Rubingh, 41, a documentary film-maker and commercial fisherman, typed the petition on his phone after driving one hour and 45 minutes from his home to Stevens Pass to find plenty of snow but more than half of the mountain closed. “I think we should all have a little grace around the pandemic and the impact it has, but when I looked around at what every other ski area in the state was doing, they had the majority of their lifts and 90 per cent or more of their terrain open,” said Rubingh, an Epic Pass holder. “I felt disenfranchised as a customer.”
Vail Resorts spokesperson Jamie Alvarez said in an e-mail that “the impacts of Omicron on our workforce was significant over the holidays.
At some resorts, we had more than 10 per cent of our employees excluded at once.” Alvarez said that meant resorts could not open some terrain and restaurants, and everything from parking to transportation and ski and ride school was affected.
She said the numbers have since subsided, and the company is still trying to hire. Alvarez also cited a recent announcement that Vail Resorts will add or upgrade 21 lifts across its ski areas for next season, part of a $320 million capital investment.
Labour issues in the ski industry go beyond temporary Covid absences. Vail Resorts has been involved in negotiations with the ski patrollers at its Park City resort, in Utah, for a year and a half, and just reached an agreement to raise their wages.
— The New York Times
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