Benson: Supporting our Utah ski neighbors

The board and the members of the Aspen Professional Ski Patrol Association (APSPA) would like to thank the community for the show of support at our Ruckus at the Ranch party at T-Lazy-7 recently. We would like to thank the amazing band, Jes Grew, Slow Groovin BBQ, New York Pizza, the staff and management at T-Lazy-7, Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club for the shuttle service, and our board members that worked so hard putting it all together.

APSPA has quietly been a strong association representing our local ski patrollers since 1986. Given the recent difficulties that other ski patrol unions have had at Vail-owned ski areas, we decided to come out of the woodwork a bit with a community outreach event so that our community knows we exist and will be negotiating with our own company in the spring. After some tough years in the 80s and 90s, we are lucky enough to have a long-standing good relationship with Aspen Skiing Company since and look forward to productive contract negotiations with our new management. We hope that our company stands with us as we voice our support for the Park City Ski Patrol and other ski patrol groups that are currently struggling to be recognized and respected by their management groups.

Our profession is important to skiing and we train heavily to keep up the numerous skills that are required to keep skiers safe and our mountains open. We need to keep our patrols strong and experienced and cannot afford to risk letting our guard down and our expertise wane — we need to retain and reward our patrollers to continue to provide the level of care and safety that we currently maintain. We would like to thank the Aspen Skiing Company for working with us and look forward to continuing our friendly and mutually grateful relationship as we move forward. Thank you for not being like Vail.

Please keep your eyes open for more APSPA sponsored community events and come out to meet your local ski patrollers. Visit us on the mountains as well — we are happy to chat and give you some intel on where to find the good skiing.

Brad Benson

APSPA board member