Keystone ski patrollers voted to accept a union contract over the weekend that includes extra incentives for jobs that require more experience and advanced training, a formula influenced by a contract agreement won recently by striking patrollers at a Utah resort.
In a contract reached with patrollers at Park City Mountain Resort last month that followed a 13-day strike, Vail Resorts agreed to a concept it calls a “mountain complexity incentive.” Keystone also is owned by Vail Resorts.
Entry-level Keystone patrollers will get an increase of $1.05 per hour over their previous base of $21, according to Keystone union spokeswoman Amanda Kelly. Intermediate patrollers will receive a $2.20 raise to $24.20 and advanced patrollers will get raises of $3.22 to $26.22. The top base wage of $24 will increase to $28.32.
“We also got higher pay for some of our medical certifications, which is something that was really important to our patrol,” Kelly said. “Keystone is very busy medically, as a mountain, so it was important for us to get our EMTs and some of our ALS (advanced life support) paramedics and nurses paid a little better. We also got some really good education incentives, some more avalanche training, as well as more medical training that we really pushed for.”
Keystone patrollers voted to unionize near the end of the ski season in 2024. This contract, which expires in May of 2027, is their first with the resort.
Union activity has increased in recent years at Colorado ski resorts. In January, patrollers at Arapahoe Basin, which is owned by Alterra Mountain Resorts, voted to unionize.
“Ski patrol is a more complex job than anyone in the general public would realize,” said Kelly, who has been a patroller there for seven years. “It takes years and years of training to become a well-rounded patroller. Within patrol we have so many specialties, and each of those specialties requires more years of training. We’ve been asking for these kinds of things for years and years and years with not a lot of headway.”
Another factor is the cost of living in Summit County, Kelly said.
“We’re all really hoping this will get us more staff,” Kelly said. “Every year it gets harder to hire people, partially because it’s just so hard to live here, and the wages just don’t reflect how complex and difficult and dangerous the job is. We’re hoping we can not only hire more people but retain the years of knowledge that we’ve been losing.”
Keystone general manager Shannon Buhler stressed the importance of teamwork between management and workers at the resort in a statement distributed by its communications team.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for our patrollers at Keystone,” Buhler said, “and I appreciate the conversations we have had throughout this process that brought us to this point: a contract with base wages that are consistent with our other resorts and skills-based pay that reflects the terrain and avalanche complexity of Keystone Resort.”
Like patrollers at neighboring Arapahoe Basin, who voted to unionize in January, Kelly stressed that Keystone patrollers love their jobs, but that passion and being happy at work don’t pay bills.
“Really, it’s the greatest job in the world,” Kelly said. “We love helping people, and we’re passionate about what we do.”