Liftie Life: Why People Work at Ski Resorts

Alex Borrell enjoys his liftie job at Eldora. Photo courtesy of Alex Borrell

Alex Borrell, Eldora

Borrell grew up in Florida but always dreamed of snowboarding since he was a kid. “Shaun White became really big and, of course, that pushed me even harder wanting to learn to snowboard,” Borrell said.

At 24 Borrell finally made it to Colorado and thought the fastest track to learning how to snowboard would be working at a ski resort. He was hired as a lift operator.

“It was one of the best jobs I’ve had so far in Colorado,” Borrell said. “I learned how to snowboard due to the fact that I was technically on a snowboard eight hours a day almost. That’s pretty much where I started. I wanted to work on the mountain. I wanted to see what it was like. After my first season I absolutely fell in love with it.”

Lift operators, or “lifties,” assist guests at ski resorts onto lifts. When Borrell first started he earned $13.50 an hour. “It wasn’t glamorous pay,” Borrell said. “You had to do it out of the love for the job. If you enjoy what you do, you never work a day in your life. Working at Eldora was not all about the customer service but seeing peoples’ smiles on their faces when you’re getting them up the mountain.”

Borrell lived with his mom in Boulder and then in Longmont during the first two seasons working as a liftie. “The only reason I survived it was because for the first two years of me being out here, I lived at my mom’s house,” Borrell said. “I took advantage of the fact that I could live at my mom’s house pretty much rent-free, and I took that chance to go become a liftie and enjoy liftie scum life.”

The ski lifts on a snowy day at Eldora. Photo courtesy of Alex Borrell

Another perk of the job is free passes to ski mountains. Borrell hit seven resorts his first year working.

“Lift operators on the mountains are kind of looked down upon by every other part of the mountain,” Borrell said. “The cafeteria people think they’re better than lifties. Ski school definitely thinks they’re better than lifties. We all kind of take pride in the fact that everybody looks down on us as lift operators. In reality we crack the joke that there would be no ski school if there weren’t lift operators. We all know that the reason most of us are lift operators is because we want to be ski bums. We want to ride down the mountain while we’re working. We want to be riding other mountains when we’re off. We all want to live that ski bum life, and the liftie operating life is something that helps with that.”

From the daily handling of guests who are too drunk to get on the ski lift to those forgetting their kids behind as they go up, Borell remembers both the funny and harrowing moments on the job. “Life operator reflexes are normally faster than a cat’s,” Borrell said.

He remembers saving a child from being hit by a lift chair and helping a hypothermic skier get to safety after she was stuck in a powder pit for seven hours. Borrell and his coworkers skied Copper Mountain in their uniforms as a joke one day.

“We had a great time until one of us got hurt,” Borrell said. “We literally had to strip a liftie down to his shirt because he was wearing Eldora everything: jacket, thermal, undershirt. He was wearing so much Eldora we literally had to strip him down to his tank top before we called ski patrol.”

Borrell and his liftie friends jokingly wear their Eldora uniforms to Copper Mountain. Photo courtesy of Alex Borrell

The pay is no longer sustainable enough for Borrell to continue working as a liftie, but of course he still has a reverence for what got him into the job in the first place. “The way that I see snowboarding is it’s like meditation,” Borrell said. “In everyday life you’re not in 100 percent  control of what could happen to you. While you’re snowboarding it’s almost like meditation to me because I am 100 percent  in control of anything that could happen to me when I’m on that mountain. It’s you, the mountain, and the board and nothing else.”

Some lifties move up to management or lift maintenance positions so that they get paid more. Although lifties often don’t make a living wage, perks like working with friends and opportunities to ski while working keep the job filled. 

“Lift operators have a big family aspect to it because we have to deal with each other on a daily basis,” Borrell said. “It’s a big comradery. It’s a big brotherhood, sisterhood. As much as I love the job and as much as I wanted to be there, I just knew because of management positions work that I probably wouldn’t be getting a management position any time soon, and in turn not be earning the money I would need to not be living at my mom’s house. I had to quit the liftie life and get another job so I could continue to not live at my mom’s house.”

As for Eldora? Borrell says it doesn’t fit that typical ski resort vibe that other ski towns have, without the corporate or high class influence.

“It’s not a big ski town, it’s more of a sleepy little hippie town if anything,” Borrell said. “It just happens to have a ski resort up the mountain from it. The whole vibe of Eldora and Nederland is pretty much the same.”

Borell’s recommendations:

Airbnb Lodging: Borrell recommends finding Airbnbs in the town of Eldora or Rollinsville. It’s nice to not have to drive up the canyon in inclement weather.

Harvest House Ganja Shop: “They have locally grown bud that is grown indoors, so it’s pretty good quality,” Borrell said. “Out of all the places in Nederland, those are probably the biggest bang for your buck.”

Hike and explore the town of Eldora: Borrell recommends looking at the old homes and exploring the hiking trails in the old mining town of Eldora. He says there’s an old truck with a tree growing out of it.

Mark Hyche, Breckenridge

Hyche had to wear many more layers than he was used to coming from Georgia to Breckenridge. Photo courtesy of Mark Hyche

Hyche hitchhiked to Breckenridge with a stack of resumes in hand. He started as a chef at a local restaurant and moved in with snowboarder guys in town.

Eventually making it to Peak 9 Restaurant at Breckenridge Resort, Hyche was the second person on the lift every morning after inspection. He remembers making 200 gallons of soup everyday, which he stirred with a boat paddle, and the party work culture.

“Once you’re a local you never pay full price, so everyone there is a raging alcoholic or doing drugs,” Hyche joked. “It’s hand in hand in that business: Whether you’re ski patrol, whether you’re a ski lift operator guy or a bartender. Everyone is doing their thing.”

Gaper Day on April 1st was one of his favorite days when the locals get back at the tourists on the slopes by dressing up as them and playfully knocking them over. Gaper Day is named after the way that tourists walk around with their mouths gaping open.

“It started getting out of hand,” Hyche said. “It was supposed to be fun, kind of like a controlled mosh pit, but then it started getting crazy, and they had cops on skis up on the hills.”

The tourists also left behind plenty of good gear for locals to snag. “One of the upsides to the tourists is you don’t have to buy anything,” Hyche said. “If you need gloves or Oakley goggles you go to the lost and found and it’s yours. I mean they’re from Miami. We’ll never see them again. They buy the best stuff and lose it. I can’t tell you how many Beats by Dr. Dre I’ve found on tables just sitting there.”

“you don’t have to buy anything, “If you need gloves or Oakley goggles you go to the lost and found and it’s yours.”

Hyche lived the vampire life, he calls it, meaning you get off late and party after work.

“When you’re a local, by the time you get home and you have one leg out of your pants, your alarm clock is going off,” Hyche said. “When you come to work, all the girls are in their underwear and bras. Everyone knows each other. Guys are over there in their boxers. There’s plates with lines on it. Someone is rolling a joint, music is going, non-slip shoes all over the place. Everyone is in their underwear bullshitting about what they did the night before.”

Hyche rented a townhome near downtown Breckenridge. “I never locked my door,” Hyche said. “My policy was if you could crawl to my house, you could stay at my house. I saved a lot of peoples’ lives. If you missed your bus to the next town, you’re done.”

Finding affordable housing is difficult for most people working at the resort. “A lot of the employers hold you hostage by way of housing,” Hyche said.

Some employers offer housing as part of pay for the job. “Housing is one of the biggest issues there,” Hyche said. “It’s not employment, it’s just where are you going to stay — and it’s gotten way more expensive. A lot of people who have a fifth and sixth home, they don’t want someone keeping employees in their property.” Some employees opt to camp out in their vehicles and stay in the free parking lots.

Hyche’s advice for the ski slopes? Never wear a Camelback. Three or four times a week he would hear a knock at Peak 9’s kitchen door with a frozen tourist on the other side whose frozen Camelback had exploded on them.

Hyche’s recommendations:

• Treasure hunting under the lifts: When springtime hits go under the lifts with metal detectors to find treasures. “You would not believe the stuff they find: cash, diamond rings, class rings,” Hyche said. “It’s unreal.”
• Kenosha Breck: Grab a Bloody Mary from Kenosha Breck or play horseshoes. “Bloody Marys are a lifesaver in this town,” Hyche said. “You drink two of those, you’re back to square one. You’re ready. You’re good to go. You’re healed.”
• Tom’s Baby: Visit the largest piece of gold ever found in Colorado.
• Panning for gold at the Blue River in Silverthorne, near the outlet malls: Try your luck panning for gold on the Blue River.
• Beaver Run Resort and Conference Center: If you book in advance, you can get a good deal there, Hyche said.
• Check out the Summit County Libraries: “They’re well funded and well taken care of,” Hyche said.
• Angry James Brewing Company: Trivia on Thursday nights

Danny Devlin, Aspen Snomass 

Danny Devlin assists a fully blind skier down the slope. Photo courtesy of Danny Devlin

Devlin joined the ski club in college in Virginia, which allowed him to ski a lot through practices and races. After graduation he traveled west to work for Challenge Aspen, an adaptive skiing program. He worked as an assistant on adaptive lessons and now assists people skiing with disabilities or visual or hearing impairments.

“The goal is that people get better at skiing, but the biggest goal is just to have fun,” Devlin said. “If you’re having fun it helps the person have fun. It’s definitely cool that the main idea behind the job is just to have a good time on the mountain. The culture definitely does reflect that.”

Devlin’s first choice was working at Copper Mountain but could not find any housing. Challenge Aspen offered employee housing at a cheaper-than-market rent rate.

Many of the lower-paid resort jobs will come with housing as an extra incentive for a lower wage. Many employers offer housing and a visa opportunity for international workers to come work in Aspen. This winter Devlin is a ski instructor and has to find his own housing because these jobs pay more. He lives in Basalt, 30 minutes away from Snowmass.

“Everyone who works ski industry jobs has at least two jobs if not more, which is definitely the culture,” Devlin said. “Pretty much all young people who work in the ski industry have at least two jobs.”

While working at Challenge Aspen last year, Devlin worked two bartending jobs. Usually Devlin finished on the slopes at 3 p.m. and started work at the bar at 4 p.m. He was able to stay at the employee housing for the season from November through April and spent the off-season in Hawaii with his girlfriend who lived there. Now that he has increased pay working as a ski instructor, he only works one bartending job on the side.

For Devlin, working many jobs is a low price to pay for the opportunity to ski.

“Most people’s passion is skiing, not ski instructing,” Devlin said. “Your boss knows you want to have time to free ski and do whatever you want. They definitely understand that because they most certainly love skiing.”

Although pricing in the Aspen area is often out of touch for those working at the resort, there is still a strong community aspect to living there.

“There’s very much a sense of community around the locals,” Devlin said. “Pretty much all businesses in some way will give locals discounts because, of course, the prices for the businesses are meant for the rich vacationers.”

Devlin’s recommendations:

• Fuel Cafe: One of the only quick food places near Snowmass
• Big Hoss Grill: One of the more affordable dinners around and where Devlin works as a bartender.
• Silver City Aspen: A fun, chill bar in Aspen that’s not overly fancy with pool tables
• Maroon Bells: Easy, chill, must-do hike
• X Games: An annual extreme sports competition with live music

Jim Schutz, Copper Mountain

Jim Schutz enjoys a day working as an instructor at Copper Mountain. Photo courtesy of Jim Schutz

An engineer by training and trade, Schutz has worked as a part-time ski instructor for 11 years. Teaching children how to ski felt natural because he’s skied his whole life and worked with kids in roles such as a Boy Scout Master and hockey team manager. “I love skiing, and I like working with kids,” Schutz said. “To me a successful day is when at the end of the day, the kid is tired and flops on the slope waiting for Mom and Dad.”

Schutz tries to get the children out skiing on the mountain and out of the classroom as much as he can. Hot chocolate breaks are pretty frequent, he said. “Copper really does focus on making the whole thing family friendly.”

“Copper really does focus on making the whole thing family friendly.”

Schutz is happy working for Copper Mountain. The schedule is flexible, and they provide and encourage further training for instructors.

“I like the inclusiveness of Copper,” Schutz said. “I feel like I’m a valued part of the team, a valued part of the organization. My management tries to keep the rigamarole out of our court and encourages us to do the teaching, to do the work with the kids.

Schutz teaches part-time on weekends and stays at his condo in Dillion. He tries to ski as much as he can when he’s not working.

“I like the flexibility of doing this,” Schutz said. “I have what I feel is a very supportive staff and management. I really enjoy that.”

Schutz’s recommendations:

• JJ’s Rocky Mountain Tavern: Offers live entertainment a couple of days a week.
• Highside Brewing: Schutz enjoys the pinball machine. “It’s nice to have something to do besides sit and drink beer,” Schutz said.
• Syndicate Brewing Co.: His new-found hangout spot
• Sunshine Cafe: Good for a sit-down breakfast
• Blue Moon Bakery: Take-and-go breakfast sandwiches
• Angry James Brewing Company: Trivia on Thursday nights