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When 200 ski patrollers in Park City walked off the job on December 27, 2024, they began the first patrol strike in more than 50 years. Operations at America’s largest ski resort were crippled for two weeks as more than 70 percent of the mountain’s terrain remained closed due to a lack of experienced workforce. Amidst abundant snowfall, hourslong lines twisted through the mountain village as furious skiers directed chants—“Pay your employees!”—at the mountain’s owner, Vail Resorts. In the weeks to follow, at least one visitor would file a class action lawsuit.
The impact of that strike reverberated well beyond Utah as skiers, industry observers, and investors aimed their ire at Vail Resorts, the Broomfield-based giant that owns and operates more than 40 mountains across the globe. The strike made international headlines and became a public relations nightmare before the labor dispute was settled on January 9.
But that this strike happened at all points to a burgeoning labor movement that has been simmering in recent years—a labor movement that has deep roots in Colorado and enormous implications for patrollers at mountains across the state. Today, patrollers across Colorado are in various stages of organization and bargaining (the Keystone Ski Patrol Union agreed to a tentative contract with Vail Resorts just this week)—and they’re building off a labor movement that began decades ago.
Read More: A Complete List of Every Mountain Vail Resorts Has Ever Purchased
Once Upon a Time in Aspen
Had you walked the streets of Aspen in 1970, you would have seen a community at odds with what it meant to be a mountain town. Counterculture, or “freak power,” as it was dubbed, was alive but steadily losing ground as the city became an exclusive destination for wealthy skiers. Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who was running for sheriff (he would lose), proposed ripping up the streets, replacing asphalt with sod, and renaming Aspen to “Fat City.” In a 1970 Rolling Stone story titled “The Battle of Aspen,” Thompson argued for changing the city’s name to “prevent greedheads, land-rapers, and other human jackals from capitalizing on the name ‘Aspen.’ ”
Thompson harbored particular animus for how the ski industry was changing the city’s economics, lamenting that well-heeled tourists—“typical midwest dingbats who buy both their gear and style out of Playboy,” he wrote—were tipping the scales in favor of the Aspen Ski Corporation and away from locals struggling to afford rent, an issue that’s as relevant today in places like Crested Butte and Summit County.
It was against this backdrop that patrollers at Aspen Mountain and Snowmass initiated the first known strike of its kind. On December 22, 1971, after nearly a year of bargaining with the Aspen Ski Corporation, nearly 40 ski patrollers represented by the Teamsters union walked off the job, demanding higher wages and a guarantee that all patrollers would be represented by the union going forward.
Aspen Ski Corporation didn’t blink. Instead, it hired replacement patrollers from Steamboat and Washington state, which led to fighting in the streets. According to the Aspen Times: “Two men were brought into police headquarters one morning when one, a replacement patroller, went into his car, took out a gun, and pointed it at a picket who had been allegedly yelling at him. No charges were filed.” Despite early fireworks, the strike ended with a whimper. By January 22, 1972, it was called off and striking patrollers found their jobs had largely been filled by less experienced out-of-towners. Aspen patrollers left the Teamsters the following year.
The efforts of organized ski patrols would not end there, though. Crested Butte ski patrollers unionized in 1978, and by 1986, patrollers in Aspen formed a new union—the Aspen Professional Ski Patrol Association—which continues to represent patrollers at Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk, and Snowmass today. At the time, Breckenridge patrollers organized with them. And in the years to follow, other mountains followed suit: Steamboat ski patrollers formed a union with the American Maritime Officers Union in 1999. They would later disband, and in 2003—along with patrollers at Breckenridge, Keystone, Crested Butte, and Aspen—voted to join the Communication Workers of America (CWA).
The State of Play Today
Over the past two decades, organizing efforts in Colorado fluctuated before taking off in the post-pandemic era. Patrollers at Breckenridge and Keystone, for instance, left the CWA after several years, but would later rejoin as a wave of new patrollers across the state started organizing. Telluride Ski Resort patrollers organized with CWA in 2015; Breckenridge reorganized in 2021; Purgatory patrollers unionized in 2022, followed by Loveland Ski Area’s patrol in 2023, and Keystone and Eldora’s in 2024. The latest effort came from Arapahoe Basin patrollers, who voted to unionize in January 2025. According to Ski Area Management, an industry publication for mountain resort workers, the number of ski patrollers represented by a union has nearly doubled since 2021.
Today, every Colorado ski patrol union—with the exception of Aspen—is organized with the United Mountain Workers, a division of CWA Local 7781. That union also represents lift mechanics at Crested Butte (which also recently reached an agreement with Vail Resorts), bike patrollers at Purgatory, and patrollers and mechanics throughout the West—including those in Big Sky, Montana, and Park City, Utah.
“We aren’t reinventing the wheel here,” says Ryan Dineen, local organizer for the United Mountain Workers and a longtime patroller at Breckenridge. “We are organizing in the same way that almost every union ever has. We are a part of a much longer history in this country of labor and capital trying to make it all work.”
What Does It All Mean for Colorado?
The most recent labor dispute was at Keystone Resort, where unionized patrollers had been bargaining with Vail Resorts since the fall. After months of frustrating back and forth, the Keystone Ski Patrol Union announced on February 17 it had reached a tentative agreement with Vail Resorts on a new contract. A formal ratification vote for that contract is scheduled for February 22.
According to Jake Randall, a member of Keystone Ski Patrol Union’s bargaining team who spoke with 5280 prior to the agreement, the two sides were at odds over more than just wages (they’d reportedly been seeking a raise in the base wage from $21.50 to $23 per hour). Randall said education and training incentives were a sticking point, as well as the ability for Keystone patrollers to encourage other organization efforts. Representatives from Vail Resorts did not respond to a request for comment.
Even before the deal was reached, Randall was hopeful the Keystone union and Vail Resorts would reach this compromise before a strike ensued. “I think [Vail Resorts] has found an urgency to get us to a contract,” he said. “With the publicity the company has recently with the Park City strike, there’s been a tone shift.”
That tone shift likely helped stave off the chaos that ensued recently in Park City and more than 50 years ago in Aspen. Still, as patrol unions become more prevalent—and seemingly more powerful—resort operators will be bargaining with organized labor for decades to come.
