Ski town strikers fight rising cost of living

Ski instructors across major U.S. resorts have been putting down their ski poles and picking up a picket sign. Instructors at Colorado’s Telluride Ski Resort have become the latest group to go on strike, joining a slew of instructors at similar resorts in recent years. Many instructors say that while these ski resorts are located in the lap of luxury, their paychecks cannot keep up with the cost of living.

Where have ski instructors been striking?

Telluride has quickly become the center of the recent labor movement. The ski resort’s union, the Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association, began a strike in December over wages, forcing Telluride to shut down its slopes. While the resort has partially reopened, officials worry the town is “staring down an economic crisis if the ski resort and its patrollers don’t settle their labor dispute” and fully reopen, said The Denver Post.

As Telluride’s slopes sit vacant, the town is “scrambling to give visitors something to do by lighting fire pits and setting up ice-sculpting events and children’s play areas,” said The New York Times. But the strike at Telluride is hardly unique: Ski patrollers at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Jackson, Wyoming, put forth a petition to unionize, part of “widespread labor activity at American ski resorts,” said Jackson Hole News & Guide. And in early 2025, patrollers in Park City, Utah, “went on strike, which caused the resort to close most of its terrain for nearly two weeks,” said NBC News. Workers at three Colorado mountains (the Keystone Resort, Eldora Mountain and Arapahoe Basin Ski Area) have also unionized.

What are they striking for?

Most of the labor activism has centered on cost-of-living issues, which ski instructors say are in stark contrast to the wealth often displayed at these resorts. These patrollers are “increasingly leading the push for higher wages in communities hit hard by rising cost of living,” said NBC. The starting wage for a ski patroller trainee at Telluride is $21 per hour, according to a job posting from the resort.

These wages “aren’t enough to live on in one of the most expensive housing markets in America,” said Tony Daranyi, who has worked as a ski patroller in Telluride for 27 years, to NBC. The amount the instructors make is “far below what it takes somebody in this community to afford either rent or trying to buy even an affordable house.” The strike is a “reflection of what’s going on in all mountain communities, and it’s also a reflection of what’s going on nationwide with income inequality and wealth.”

In Telluride, union negotiators put forth a proposal that “increased the base rate for station leads to $41 an hour and gave staff annual increases based on the cost of living,” said KKCO-TV Grand Junction. But this may not be enough to keep up with the exorbitant pricing in some of these towns. People “sit around and have constant conversations about workforce housing,” said Andrew Aerenson, a ski instructor in Breckenridge, Colorado, to the Times. But there are still many challenges that remain, as it typically costs Breckenridge “$150,000 in subsidies to build a single unit of affordable housing, a process that takes years even when the funds are available.”