Vail Resorts has closed its $265 million acquisition of Missouri-based Peak Resorts. The transaction adds 17 US ski areas to Vail’s network of resorts, bringing the total number of owned and operated resorts to 37 worldwide. Most Peak locations have historically been staffed with volunteer ski patrols affiliated with the NSP. Vail does not anticipate making significant changes to the way the patrols operate this season.
Continue reading Vail Completes Peak Resorts’ Acquisition
VAIL, Col. — Sanford Morris “Sandy” Treat II first trained in the Colorado mountains as a young man at Camp Hale after leaving Dartmouth College in 1942 when US forces would soon join World War II. He later returned to the Vail area after retiring from a successful business career.
Treat was personally recruited by 10th Mountain Division and National Ski Patrol System co-founder, Minnie Dole.
Continue reading 10th Mountain Vet and Vail Skiing Icon, Sandy Treat, Passes at 96
Robert Kendrick, of Leadville, Colorado, passed away on 28 July at eighty-eight. He was awarded NSP National Appointment number 2330 in 1960, and was on the founding patroller team when Vail first opened. Robert Kendrick born Aug. 12, 1930, in Leadville. He was also a mining executive and a founding trustee of the National Mining Hall of Fame located in Leadville. Continue reading…
Patrollers at Telluride are the latest to organize a union, bringing the count of unionized “Pro Patrols” at large resorts around the US to eight. Telluride patrollers, in a 47 to 1 vote, joined the ranks of Colorado’s Crested Butte and Steamboat, and Utah’s Canyons Resort in February of 2015. Those resorts are represented by the United Professional Ski Patrols of America (UPSPA), operating as Local 7781 of the AFL-CIO’s Communications Workers of America (COA) union. 
Patrollers at Aspen SkiCo’s four resorts, Aspen Mountain, Snowmass, Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk, have been separately unionized since 1986 as the Aspen Professional Ski Patrol Association (APSPA). The Steamboat Professional Ski Patrol Association voted in a union in a December 1999, 44 to 12 vote. Canyons patrollers unionized in April of Continue reading Ski Patrol Unions: Isolated Occurrences or the Latest Trend for Ski Patrol Organizations?
The Breckenridge Ski Patrol obliterated “Leo’s Pot Shack” following an Inside Edition report pointed out some of the safety risks posed by the now quasi-legal use of marijuana on some Colorado ski slopes. This follows the legalization of marijuana by Colorado voters in late 2012. The video below shows the shack as it was reportedly being blown up by the Breckenridge Patrol.
The grandson of Vail’s Founder was killed in an avalanche in out-of-bounds terrain at the East Vail Chutes. Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) investigators were diverted from their study of a 2 January slide at Breckenridge, where there were no injuries, to the Vail scene.
Tony Seibert, 24, was killed in the Vail incident. He was the grandson of Vail founder Pete Seibert, and the son of Terry and Pete Seibert Jr. There were four others skiing with Seibert, one of whom was also injured. Continue reading Vail Founder’s Grandson Killed in Chutes Avalanche
Seventy-five years ago this week, two guys from Massachusetts met at the National Ski Races on Stowe’s Nose Dive trail and the National Ski Patrol (NSP) was born. 
As the NSP enters its 76th year and reflects upon its legacy, ski patrollers serve a very different skiing population and group of industry stakeholders. In this article we explore whether the National Ski Patrol System has accomplished its mission, and pose the question, “Has the U.S. network of ski and alpine touring resorts now evolved to the point where it can more effectively assume the NSP’s mission to prevent skiing accidents and assist those sustaining accidents?”
The past may inform the future on that point. Continue reading Happy 75th Birthday NSP: Mission Accomplished?
BROOMFIELD, Colo. Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN) the owner of Breckenridge, has received approval from the US Forest Service (USFS) for a 543-acre terrain expansion in the Peak 6 area of Breckenridge Ski Resort. 
Peak 6 will include 400 acres of lift-served terrain and 143 acres of terrain that skiers and boarders can hike-to. The Company expects to open the new terrain for the 2013-2014 ski season, including adding a new high-speed, six person chairlift and a new fixed-grip chairlift to access the Peak 6 area. A ski patrol warming hut with bathrooms is also planned.
According to Rob Katz, chairman and CEO of Vail Resorts, Continue reading Breckenridge Gets USFS Peak 6 Expansion Approval; Plans Include Ski Patrol Warming Hut and 2 New Lifts (Update)