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Hi. I’m Ben Benton from Flagstaff, Arizona. I believe that you will enjoy my daily journal from Winter Park, Colorado, Ski Resort during Christmas break 1999-2000. I left downtown Flagstaff Wednesday morning, December 22 with my skis, duffle, and laptop computer, and ended up at Snoasis, a lodge midway up the mountain in Winter Park. My journal will continue through the first week of January. You’ll read about Winter Park Ski Resort, Snoasis, Sunspot Lodge, the great people who work here, and anything else I can think of to write about. I’m the author of “National Park Employment Data,” a guide to working in national parks, which is available for purchase on my web site at www.gorp.com/nped/. I’ve been working in national parks and ski areas off and on for over twenty years. Because I want the data in my book to always be fresh, I continually test the concepts, employers, and tips that I provide. I first worked at Winter Park in the late 70s while I was a student at Arizona State University. |
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Friday, December 24, 1999 Ben the Baker Good Morning. I don’t know where they got these bunk beds, but the clearance between the lower bunk and the upper one is about 18 inches, which explains why Gabe took the top bunk. I feel like I’m sleeping on a submarine. I wrote the first two journals last night and formatted them for the Internet. This morning, I used a phone on the main floor to upload. It is long distance blocked, of course, but accepts 800 numbers. So I created a dialing string with my AT&T phone card to dial my ISP in Flagstaff in the “Dial-Up Networking” program in Windows, and it worked. That’s how I uploaded my journal last summer in Yellowstone National Park in the lobby of the Hot Springs Hotel. Manager Tim Delphia came in this morning and decided that I would work nights as combination night cleaner and baker. That’s pretty cool, since it lets me ski all day. Snoasis bakes all their own muffins, brownies, rice crispy treats, and rolls for subs and hoagies. With the morning off, I walked to the base and got my camera out of the truck and some other things, and headed over to the Season Pass office for my ski pass/employee ID. ***** I first worked at Snoasis in 1978 when the Ski Club at Arizona State University came up to Winter Park over Christmas break. I was a starving student in those days and worked the Fiesta Bowl as a hawker to earn money for the trip. In those days, Fiesta Bowl was a minor bowl and was held before Christmas. I made $128 and headed to Colorado in a car pool. Our car arrived in Winter Park first and my skis were on a later car. We all jumped out and went to the base lodge, called Balcony House, which was one of the first passive solar-designed buildings in the U.S. Right in the ticket window was a sign: “Help Wanted.” Thank goodness, because my $128 wouldn’t have gone very far. They asked me to ride up the lift to Snoasis for an interview with manager Greg Galavan. I said I couldn’t because my skis were on a later car. He hired me sight unseen anyway. Greg Galavan went on to become director of food service for Winter Park until he retired last summer. We always enjoyed seeing each other over the twenty years that I’ve been coming back. A new payroll system started that year and my employee number was, and is, 1686. With over 13,700 employees since then, the number really stands out when the checks come in. I worked on the grill in the “scramble area” in Snoasis that first year and stayed with the ASU Ski Club at the Blue Spruce Motel in Granby, miles from the ski area, where we got a good deal on two rooms. Yes, two rooms. One for all the men and one for all the women. The Ski Club only stayed a week, but I stayed on until late January, sleeping in the basement of Snoasis. I forget how I got back to Tempe, Arizona, but I remember that I just barely made late registration. ***** With my 1999-2000 employee ID completed, I rode the Gemini
lift up to Snoasis to start baking. I bussed tables for a while
then started baking about the time the snowcat left for the base
with the day crew. I made mini loaves for hoagies, brownies,
and rice crispy treats until about 8:00 P.M., then helped vacuum
the dining room.  |
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