It is a well-worn trope that snowsports instructors and ski patrollers don’t mix. Big Sky Resort in Montana is overcoming the historical divide by implementing formal cross-training programs for the two teams, which, combined, number 600 people. These initiatives aim to leverage each department’s expertise and standardize positive collaborations that were happening informally already.
For the past three seasons, instructors have led ski tests to evaluate new patrollers’ skills and offered voluntary clinics to help them improve in ways that are relevant to their work. This initiative laid the foundation for expanded collaboration this season, when department leaders incorporated patrollers into the mandatory training for instructors who want to become guides.
There are many practical impacts of forging a stronger working relationship for these two on-mountain teams. According to the department directors, the ski check program is intended to help reduce workplace injuries for patrollers, while the guide training is intended to help create better, safer, more knowledgeable guides. The empowerment gained and connections built via knowledge and perspective sharing across the two teams are, anecdotally, having a positive impact on job satisfaction and the department cultures and also improving guest relations.
These cross-department efforts offer valuable insights into how ski areas can foster similar collaborations between departments that typically don’t interact.
Utilize Existing Expertise
Past collaboration helps. Big Sky has 5,850 acres of skiable terrain and 4,350 vertical feet. Advanced to extreme terrain makes up half the mountain. For three seasons, Big Sky’s top instructors have assessed the skiing skills of new patrollers, tailoring evaluations to the unique demands of the job in that environment. The evaluations test abilities like putting skis on safely in steep terrain and sideslipping through moguls while pulling a toboggan, with individual feedback provided after each outing.
Anna Middleton, a patrol training supervisor and former instructor, says she could certainly do the checks herself. But “why do it when I could have a level 3 instructor (someone with the highest certification from the Professional Ski Instructors Association-American Association of Snowboard Instructors) who has been doing it every day for years? It’s more meaningful coming from them— they’re the experts.”
On the mountain sports school side, Big Sky’s guide program is run by instructors who get to take individuals up the Lone Peak Tram to experience managed alpine terrain, including places that require a hike, avalanche gear, and a check-in with ski patrol.
Extra training has always been required to become a guide and, for roughly the past five years, individual guides and patrollers have been working together informally to improve efforts. For the 2024-25 season, Middleton and Zoe Mavis, training manager for the mountain sports school, decided to formally integrate ski patrollers into portions of the guide training.
Formalizing the process. For the first official outing, 50 guides-in-training were broken into groups of 10, each led by a ski patroller. In the planning process, Middleton had multiple conversations with patrollers to solicit input on what the guides needed to know. Topics included how openings and closures happen, the proper use of the radio during early access, and routes.
For Mavis, opening avenues for guides to build relationships is about tapping into patrol’s deep mountain knowledge. It’s important for guides to feel comfortable asking questions and for patrol to understand the experiences guides are looking to provide. “We have some pretty consequential terrain, and we want to make sure people are using all the info and resources they have to make the right choices for our guests,” she says.
A focus on safety. This awareness is imperative at Big Sky because guides can take guests on the mountain up to an hour before lifts open to the public. It’s a critical time when patrollers are often doing extensive safety work, which can include triggering avalanches. Middleton emphasized that patrol wants to have deep trust in anyone getting on a lift early.
“It’s important that snowsports understands why that is so heavy for patrol. Think about how it would feel if you were a patroller holding an explosive between your knees, are about to light it, and you look up to see people skiing below you. That is a scary bad day,” she says. “We need [guides] to understand our operations to keep themselves safe and help us open [on time] for the rest of our guests.”
Guides must request entry for managed-access terrain from ski patrol, and some requests are denied. Now, through this training program, guides have a better understanding of how these decisions are made.
“It just feels good when [a guide] comes in and you have to say no, and they just say, ‘No problem.’ That’s a much better relationship,” says Middleton. “It’s critical to have support from the instructor in explaining to the guest that the focus is safety … and that everyone is on the same page of wanting guests to have an exceptional experience in managed, high-alpine terrain.”
And for patrol, she adds, “It helps our operation run better when the team that’s twice as big (snowsports) understands what we’re doing and can help be that guest-facing communicator.”
Middleton’s belief is that collaboration also has positive brand-perception implications. There are only a few times when guests witness interactions between snowsports and ski patrol. “It’s a place where, if we have good teamwork, we can build a lot of credibility for the other person’s department in that moment for the guest … it speaks volumes about the professionalism of the organization as a whole,” she says.
Mountain sports school staff and patrollers are encouraged to get out on snow together.
Build on Existing Relationships
The roots of trust had already been spreading through the two departments. Vice president of mountain sports Christine Baker and patrol director Nancy Sheil have been friends for about two decades.
Despite good relations at the top, Mavis observes that the departments were growing significantly, and it was no longer as easy to get to know colleagues in other roles. She saw a need to bring intentionality to the interactions. “We’re trying to figure out how to take behaviors we have seen and that have worked well, and coach those to help others utilize those behaviors as their baseline moving forward,” she says.
Baker acknowledges the departmental silos, but her first reaction when the partnership was proposed was that it’s a “no brainer.” She emphasizes the importance of commitment and formalization, and getting the right people in place to spread buy-in across teams. The risk she sees is that programs like these, if they have just one champion, can fall away if that person leaves.
Keys to Success
Leaders must show up. Baker and Sheil both stress the importance of support from the top; leaders have to show up. Baker says that directors can’t just tell line-level staff to do something. She encourages sharing anecdotes from the top down of how leaders have worked together, and ongoing collaborations such as after-incident debriefs with both teams or reviewing each other’s training manuals, plus regular information sharing about what each department is doing. She and Sheil also emphasize that teams should commit to spending time on snow together, because that’s very different than sending emails.
Cred and culture matter, too. Mavis and Middleton both emphasize the need to thoughtfully choose the people involved. One of the instructors who stepped up is a summer guide in South America. He works closely with patrol there, and is known as a phenomenal skier with great respect for the mountain. Patrollers who raised their hands to help train the mountain guides are past instructors with existing good relationships across teams. Those types of people are lending credibility to the efforts.
Baker stresses that in this process, it’s important to keep the guest experience in mind. The two groups can have conversations around that baseline understanding to solve problems and find unique solutions.
“Keep the team member experience in mind, as well,” says Sheil. “With this collaboration in particular, this is more about feeling like we have a workplace with good communications and not getting frustrated with our coworkers, even though we’re in different departments.”
“The culture piece is a really important part of it,” Sheil adds. “Being curious enough to want to know what someone else’s experience is like, and being open to understanding that it might be different from your own, has been a big part of the successes we have seen so far.”
If a ski area is starting from scratch, Mavis believes almost anyone can be the person who models the right behavior and gets things started. “For anyone at any level, it’s not hard to be kind; it’s not hard to respect others and it’s not hard to respect other peoples’ perspective. It just takes a little commitment,” she says.
Next steps. In looking to the future of the partnership, Mavis is exploring how to leverage patrol to teach guides additional skills such as self-arrest, beacon use, and route finding in steeps. Conversely, based on feedback from a recent ski test, Middleton is planning a voluntary steeps clinic run by instructors to further support patrollers.
“It’s a very interesting thing with these two departments, because all of our identities are wrapped up in what we do,” says Mavis. “We’re trying to create a relationship where we respect the fact that we all take our jobs seriously. We can’t engage in this without understanding that’s a huge part of it. We want to make sure that the emotional risk is managed in these spaces, too, so that the relationships can be positive.”
SAMMY Guest Editor says…
This article demonstrates the awesome potential that resort teams have to formalize a program that can grow relationships and connectivity amongst departments.
Having worked on this concept informally in the early 2000s as the Aspen Highlands ski school manager, I can agree that collaboration between patrol and snowsports schools is worth its weight in gold.
Both departments house professionals that care deeply about what they do to support their teams, the guest, and the company for which they work. These employees bring expertise and experience that can be shared in an effort to support a more risk-free environment for both the guest and those working with them.
The patrol and snowsports school employees have long days throughout the season with varying and sometimes intense demands, so efforts to support and understand each other are imperative. Putting this collaboration into a formal program can grow communication, improve education, build a culture of inclusion, and support collaboration in problem solving.
A program like this seems most easily started at resorts that have terrain that requires avalanche mitigation, but at all resorts, this relationship building can be productive and grow understanding across these departments.
Beyond snowsports and patrol, this can be a great example for other resort departments to continue cross-cultural interaction to improve relationships and productivity.
—KATIE ERTL, Mountain Operations
Senior Advisor, Aspen Skiing Company
2024 SAMMY Leadership Award Honoree
