Park City, Utah — I think it’s safe to say that it wasn’t a good weekend for Park City Mountain Resort and Vail Resorts. Striking patrollers greeted skiers and riders who drove into the Mountain and Canyons Villages. New snowfall tested the remaining patrollers and “new hires”, leading to minimal new terrain openings and frustrated customers. Park City’s latest Instagram post received over 700 comments, which typically isn’t a good sign for a ski resort.
One of these customers penned his frustration at Vail Resorts in a viral Twitter response to KUTV 2 New’s Brian Mullahy. Michael Riley, who’s a longtime skier at Park City Mountain Resort, called Vail’s handling of this weekend’s situation an “epic failure.” Outside of a few disses, Michael’s letter was cordial.
His full statement is below:
“Thank you for reporting this Brian. I’m going to comment from a perspective of skiing PCMR for 25+ years. My 2 kids learned to ski here. I have nothing but respect for the ski patrol professionals who are dedicated, courteous, and diligent in their avalanche mitigation efforts while keeping the resort safe and take great care of folks when they get injured on the mountain.
@VailResorts, @vailmtn, @PCski I truly believe and strongly encourage your senior leadership team to come to the table and create a win for all parties involved. The requests seem very reasonable given the skills needed to perform their jobs at a high level. What is happening now is an epic failure. The entire upper mountain is closed. I asked a mountain host why. She was very friendly and stated ‘there is not enough snow for the off ramps to function for all lifts at the top of the mountain.’ While I credit @VailResorts PR team, this is comical given all the recent snow. I believe the true reason is lack of labor including said ski patrol professionals who are not available for avalanche mitigation. I’m enclosing a video from today. While frustrating for me, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to ski once more terrain is opened up. What is truly a shame is all the families that came this week and now have to suffer disastrous lift lines. I encourage @VailResorts to reconsider their position. I’m tagging locals to help get the message out if they would like to help. Sincerely, From a skier who has loved skiing this resort for almost 3 decades.”
Michael has been one of many skiers and riders to call on Vail Resorts to end the strike and get patrollers back on the slopes.
Vail Resorts remains insistent that it is engaging in good faith with the striking patrollers and has made a fair counteroffer to their requests. In addition, Vail believes that PCMR is properly staffed and can operate safely. Park City Mountain Resort remains open with patrollers who aren’t a part of the union and ski patrollers brought in from other mountains. This morning, the Utah ski resort has 64 trails (out of 350) trails and 19 (out of 41) lifts open. However, they had significant operational challenges, with now 46 trails being listed as open and 19 lifts operating.
Image/Video Credits: Michael Riley, Park City Mountain Resort, Brian Mullahy
