It has been almost eight months since Park City Mountain’s ski patrol union staged a strike that disrupted holiday business and resulted in significant concessions from the resort and its parent company, Vail Resorts.
Now the summer workers want to have their say.
Park City Mountain’s bike patrol and trail crew will be jointly filing for union representation, the Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association announced Thursday. Many of the bike patrol and trail workers are also ski patrollers, according to a news release from the association. The release said they are seeking to have the same assurances and wage scale for summer employees as are now in place for winter ones.
“These summertime employees petitioning to unionize are required to have medical certificates, [are] asked to participate in lift evacuation exercises, and [have] many other skilled and dangerous jobs, just as in the winter,” said the release, which was signed by Syd Hyer, vice president of the ski patrol union’s Mountain Village team, and union treasurer Corlan Williamson. “We would like to have recognition of those skills from the resort, as well as union protections, like we do in the winter.”
A Park City Mountain spokesperson told The Salt Lake Tribune that summer employees already receive additional compensation for performing lift evacuations. Generally, the spokesperson said, operations and roles at the resort are less complex in the summer.
The petition will be sent to the National Labor Relations Board for approval. The release did not clarify a timeline for submitting the petition nor whether the trail and bike workers would ask for voluntary recognition from the resort.
If the petition is approved and at least 50% of employees vote to unionize, Park City Mountain’s summer workers would have their own unit, separate from that of the ski patrol. However, they would be represented by the the same Communication Workers of America Local 7781 as the ski patrollers.
Park City Mountain typically offers bike haul for about three months on the Crescent lift at the Mountain Village base and on the Red Pine Gondola from the Canyons Village base. The resort does not have a bike park, but allows both biking and hiking on its trails.
A Park City Mountain spokesperson said the bike haul services are not a profitable line of business for the resort.
“We are aware of the petition filed by bike patrollers and trail crew at Park City Mountain,” the resort said Thursday in a statement. “We believe a direct connection to our employees fosters the strongest working relationship between our employees and their resort leaders, but we respect their right to file this petition and are engaging in this process.”
After wrangling with Vail Resorts over contract details for almost a year, Park City Mountain’s ski patrollers went on strike in late December, in the middle of the winter holiday crush. Skiers and snowboarders criticized Park City Mountain for long lines and a lack of communication during the strike, causing Vail Resorts’ stock to drop.
On Jan 8, the two sides agreed on a contract good through 2027 that raised wages, created a parental leave policy and provided for educational opportunities.
The lead negotiator for the patrollers called it “a groundbreaking success in the ski and mountain worker industry.”
Editor’s note • Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, 12:26 p.m.: This article has been updated to include additional information about Park City Mountain’s summer mountain bike operations.