Mountain Town News
Patrollers unionize
TELLURIDE, Colo. – Ski patrollers at Telluride have voted 47-1 to join the Communications Workers of America.
Ski patrollers, according to the Telluride Daily Planet, say they want a structure for effectively communicating to management their needs and to establish economic compensation that is equitable and predictable.
The statement issued by ski patrollers also said they want to ensure that every employee “works in an environment that is free from fear and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect and where an equitable system exists to resolve complaints through arbitration, if necessary.”
The same union also represents ski patrollers at Steamboat, Crested Butte, and The Canyons.
Can patrollers afford Park City?
PARK CITY, Utah – A two-year contract between ski patrollers and management at The Canyons is ending, and this time the patrollers will negotiate with Vail Resorts.
Pete Earle, president of the Canyons Professional Ski Patrol Association, tells The Park Record that one consideration for ski patrollers is being able to afford to live in Park City.
“I moved here 11 years ago, and one of the reasons I chose Park City is it was one of the few ski towns in the West that I could afford to live and work in the same town,” he said.
People are now getting priced out, he added. “We have more and more people moving every year to Salt Lake or to Heber (both located about 30 minutes away).”
Profit margins very good
LAKEWOOD, Colo. – Studying the payments made by ski areas to operate on U.S. Forest Service land in Colorado last year, The Denver Post concludes that ski area operators made out handsomely last ski season.
All but 4 of the state’s 22 ski areas counted the 2013-14 as their highest-grossing year, reports The Denver Post. Their payments to the Forest Service are based on their revenues.
Vail ski area paid the most, at $5.4 million, followed by Breckenridge at $3.5 million, then Keystone at $2.9 million, Steamboat at $1.5 million, and Snowmass at $1.4 million.
But Arapahoe Basin led the state in terms of growth, a 45 percent increase in revenue.
The Post also points out that Vail Resorts has surpassed Intrawest as the nation’s leading ski company, and that 75 percent of Vail’s income is coming from on-mountain operations, and just 4 percent from real estate.
Sage grouse need more QT
PINEDALE, Wyo. – Drilling companies in Wyoming’s natural gas patch near Pinedale, south of Jackson, have complied with noise limits set to protect sage grouse.
The natural ambient sound of the sagebrush country was presumed to be 39 decibels. So a limit of 49 db was set.
And how was that ambient sound determined? The Jackson Hole News&Guide points to what was apparently sloppy rule-making. The study used to set the standard had been conducted on a tomato farm in California in 1971. There had been traffic, dogs barking, jets flying overhead, and an orchard pruner at work.
Such sounds are not likely part of the natural soundscape of a remote part of Wyoming covered by sagebrush. The natural sound is 19 decibels, according to a California researcher. The researcher, Gail Patricelli, of the University of California-Davis, documented major declines in sage grouse mating as sounds from nearby drilling grew.
