Stevens Pass patrons walking to and from the mountain.
The 2021 ski and snowboarding season at Stevens Pass resort is off to a bumpy start with only about half its terrain open amid a staffing shortage and widespread reports of parking problems and long chairlift lines, compounded by a week-long weather closure of the pass itself, causing the resort, in turn, to close. Now though, skiers and boarders are back on the slopes amidst changes being made from Denver, home to Stevens’ corporate owner, Vail Resorts.
The beloved Cascade Mountains ski area on Highway 2, less than an hour west of Leavenworth, has been the training and proving ground for scores of CHS students past and present. Now, its future seems uncertain as management has come under mounting pressure in recent weeks. Almost 40,000 frustrated people, including many in the CHS community, have signed an online petition insisting that Vail improve conditions at the Pass. Among the demands: that the resort is staffed adequately enough to open the 60% of terrain that has remained closed, including the whole of the backside of the mountain, since the season began – or issue refunds on season passes. “This issue is essentially about corporate greed and people are organizing to say they’ve had enough,” said Jeremy Rubingh, organizer of the petition. While most CHS skiers and snowboarders are issued free season passes via the Stevens Pass Academic Excellence Program, pass holders, who have an array of multi-resort season pass options under the Vail Epic Pass program, paid up to $1,000.
Vail, which purchased Stevens in 2018 and reported $544.7 million in gross earnings for fiscal year 2021, has attributed the problems at Stevens to an industry-wide employee shortage and the global pandemic adversely affecting the service economy. Vail resorts spokesperson Sara Roston said that “[l]ike others in the travel and leisure industry, Stevens Pass is contending with staffing shortages, creating challenges for certain departments.” Rubingh, however, contends in his petition that other Cascade resorts such as Snoqualmie Pass, Crystal Mountain, and White Pass, none of which are owned by Vail, are not having the same staffing shortages as Stevens because they are paying a higher wage to their employees. Newspaper accounts from around the country report labor shortages at other small ski resorts owned by Vail.
In an open letter to the Stevens community published January 12th, Vail Resorts announced that it had replaced Stevens general manager Tom Pettigrew with Tom Fortune, on an interim basis. Fortune is the general manager of Heavenly Ski Resort in South Lake Tahoe, California and grew up skiing at Stevens, as did his children. “I am glad to be coming home, even if just temporarily,” Fortune wrote in the letter, “to support this period of transition at Stevens Pass. I know many of you are frustrated – and we’ve heard you.” Fortune went on to promise more transparency from Vail to the Stevens community.
“With the new leadership, we are cautiously optimistic because you know Tom is a local guy. He grew up skiing Stevens. So, we’ve got to give him a chance,” responded Rubingh. One of the first actions Fortune took was to limit capacity. Over the MLK holiday weekend, to reduce long lift lines and give more slope time to pass holders, Stevens made no walk-up tickets available.
Opinions on the state of affairs vary within the CHS/CSD community. Senior Zach Holton, whose parents both worked at Stevens, including his father for 27 years, is a standout Stevens Pass Alpine Club racer. Holton recalls his first day skiing at Stevens as “the day after I first learned to walk.” He feels that Vail has “made working there not super fun” and that “it is kind of a mess up there right now. My first two races were cancelled due to the limited terrain being open.” Holton would love to see new ownership. Barring that, he believes that “paying employees more and treating them better” would help. “Unfortunately, though, the old skier and employee focused culture has been replaced by a corporate culture. I’m not sure how that can be fixed.”
Alpine Lakes Elementary School third grade teacher Niki Northrup, possessing a similar familial pedigree at Stevens, as a former 17-year ski patroller at the mountain and whose husband has been there for decades and is currently the Assistant Patrol Director, sees things a little differently. “In my years at Stevens, we went through three ownership changes and each time there was a lot of adjustments at the mountain.” Northrup feels that the purchase of Stevens by Vail brought comparable change and that “there are a lot of great things happening. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of misinformation going around, including a perception of a loss of culture. But culture is created by people. If you are disappointed by a certain lack of culture, continue to go up to Stevens and grow it. High-five a lift operator!” Northrup believes that Vail is being reflexively, and without great thought, viewed as the “corporate villain.” However, “the staffing shortage is, in part, caused by the pandemic and, in larger part, by housing issues. Leavenworth has become one of the most expensive communities to live in the area and the commute to Stevens is a long way from everywhere else. Vail is working on these issues though by implementing better policies like free employee transportation, higher wages, health insurance, college scholarship opportunities for the children of employees, and better overtime policies. None of these things were in place when I began working at Stevens.” Northrup also pointed out that Vail has continued the aforementioned Stevens Pass Academic Excellence Program and has brought a “greater focus on safety to the mountain.” Northrup concluded by saying that the temporary problems at Stevens have been caused “by a culmination of issues: housing prices, the pandemic, and service industry struggles, particularly in a remote area. People need to realize that skiing is a privilege and that these problems will be fixed.”
A corresponding opinion was expressed by a Leavenworth based employee in management at the resort who felt that things at the mountain “are actually going really well. Unfortunately, when we tried to open this year, Covid dealt us a big blow. Then we were hit with four feet of snow in one night.” When pressed about a current lack of employees, the manager, who wished to remain anonymous, felt that “Vail is weeding out a lot of people who really didn’t want to be there anyway, which is improving the experience for everyone. Look, Tom Pettigrew did as well as he could, but Tom Fortune may be able to access more resources. Running a ski area is not easy. It’s a big deal and Fortune is the man to handle it. As to other perceived problems up there, I mean, no one is getting hurt and no one is making anyone buy a lift ticket or pass.” He concluded by “remind[ing] everyone” that “Stevens Pass Kicks and always will!”
Nonetheless, the limited opening of the resort has hit frequent skiers at CHS hard. Sophomore Serenity Saugen, who has skied Stevens since early childhood and counts more days on the mountain every year than most, describes “how difficult it has been to get up there with so little open.” Even when there, the inability “to find good terrain with everyone using the same limited space is frustrating.” Asked for her opinion as to the root of the problem, Saugen felt that “Vail took over a local mountain and made it industrial.” As for suggested solutions, she felt that if Vail “focused more on its customers, particularly those from Plain and Leavenworth, the experience could get better.”
While patron’s opinions may differ, they all have one desire in common: getting the mountain fully operational in a safe manner is of prime importance. It is likely that desire is held widely among those invested in skiing or snowboarding at Stevens this and every winter.
If you are a skier or snowboarder at Stevens, we would like to hear your thoughts. Please leave them in the comments below.
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