Willoughby: Working in the cold

We head to the mountain to ski. If it is very cold and it isn’t a powder day, we might arrive later, hoping it will be warmer. Do you ever think about the mountain employees laboring in the cold?

There is cold, and there is COLD. We each have a different tolerance for it — what is freezing to some is just a normal winter day for others. Decades ago, I was on the chairlift on what to me was a dreadfully cold day, thinking of heading home. The person riding in the same chair asked me what my problem was (I was shivering), and after I replied, he said, “I’m from Vermont, this is an average day for me; if you really want to experience cold, come for a visit” — or something like that.

Compared to other Colorado ski towns, Aspen’s winter temperatures are higher (At least, that is what this native proudly claims). But, early in the morning in winter, it is cold when all those mountain employees tackle things like shoveling or the ski patrol checking for potential avalanches or even those headed up the lifts to staff the food outlets. 

The recent article about the employees’ settlement with the SkiCo said there were 10,000 employees since 2018. That adds up to many cold hours. Extend that back another 70 years to the beginning of the company.

The early employees relied on layers of wool to keep warm, but the #One lift also had a canvas attachment to the single chairs that on cold days, but mostly for snowy days, you could pull it over yourself covering all but a hole to see out of. The #One lift was the longest anywhere at the time, and it ran quite fast, but it was a looooong, coooold ride to Midway on a freezing morning.

Many of the early employees — like my father, Newt and Eldo Klusmire, Tony Caperrella, Ed Tekoucick, Alec Barrailler, and Red Rowland — had been working in Aspen’s mines before they worked for the SkiCo. Their mining job was in the sunless winter Queens Gulch at nearly 10,000 feet, so a transition to the skiing operation was quite easy.

One of my father’s stories was a morning in the 1930s when he had to start the Midnight’s small bulldozer to get from Castle Creek up to the mine. At that time, that was how miners and supplies got there, it pulled a sled behind it. He said it was around 20 below — so cold that he had to build a small fire under it to thaw the oil in the oil pan to start the motor. That same small caterpillar was used later to haul visiting skiers from the Midnight camp to the top of the mountain for their trip down the first run, Roch Run. Once SkiCo started, it was used to haul water from the camp to the Sundeck to fill the water tanks. It was a slow exposed trip up the mountain.

Miners were tough. However, winter work was not as bad as it might seem. Once you got a hundred feet into a tunnel or went down in a shaft the same distance, the temperature was in the 50s — day or night, winter or summer. That is not a great temperature if you are sitting still, and in Aspen’s mines, there was water in the tunnels and dripping from the ceiling that had a chilling effect. But their work was hard physical labor, like a workout in a gym that at a higher temperature would have led to sweat.

For many years, the Midnight miners lived at the mine. Later when the roads were better and they had four-wheel-drive trucks, they commuted from town. After a tiring time underground, they exited into the deep snow, headed to the bunkhouse, and crowded around a wood stove. A few hours loading people in chairs or shoveling snow at the Sundeck was an easier job.

Tim Willoughby’s family story parallels Aspen’s. He began sharing folklore while teaching at Aspen Country Day School and Colorado Mountain College. Now a tourist in his native town, he views it with historical perspective. Reach him at redmtn2@comcast.net.