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The Telluride Ski Resort has reopened with very limited terrain after being closed for more than a week.

The ski company closed the resort Dec. 27 after the Telluride Ski Patrol Union voted to go on strike, according to Telski officials. Ski patrol and Telski have been in contract negotiations since June 2025.

While the mountain is technically reopened, few runs are available. On a snowy Monday morning, Lift 1 was spinning, with only the Meadows Carpet and Vista Carpet open.

Just off the slopes, about 30 ski patrollers were on the picket line for another day of striking.

“This is day 10, sadly,” noted Jessica Blount, a 20-year ski patroller at Telluride Ski Resort.

“I feel really really torn about it. I didn’t think it would go this far. I didn’t think it would drag out this long. It was never what we wanted, but our jobs are just as important as anyone else’s. We’ve heard the word ‘entitled’ thrown around a bunch, which makes me feel really bad, because we don’t think we’re any more important than anyone else, but we are just as important. We have an important job it turns out. The Ski Resort can’t run without us. We’re not asking for anything unreasonable,” Blount said.

On Saturday, Telluride Ski Resort sent a message to the community saying it has had continued conversations with ski patrol to bridge the gap between the two sides.

The ski company offered a new proposal that would increase the base rate for station leads, add a “complexity pay bonus” of $1.50 for all hours worked — paid out midseason and at the end of the season — provide a three-year contract, and include cost-of-living pay increases in years two and three.

But Katherine Devlin, vice president of the Telluride Ski Patrol Union and a ski patroller at the resort for six years, said the offer does not address the union’s needs, specifically citing the bonus structure.

“We really need the base structure to be addressed, rather than a bonus structure. When you’re applying for a mortgage, you can’t tell your loaner ‘Hey I’m going to be getting a bonus at the end of this year’. So, it’s another Band-Aid on the problem, it’s not really fixing it,” Devlin said.

She said the union countered with another offer to Telski on Sunday.

“We have lowered the price of the proposal, again, so that delta is getting smaller and smaller – the difference between our proposal and theirs. So, we’re getting closer and closer. It’s good news,” she said.

Emil Sante, a ski patroller at Telski for 30 years, said patrol is ready to return to work as soon as a deal is reached.

“If we got a deal today, we’d be in the locker room first thing in the morning and coming up and doing our job,” Sante said.

In the meantime, Sante encouraged visitors to continue skiing.

“We wish people a fun day on the ski slopes. We’ve had a lot of people come to us and apologize for skiing today. We say ‘no, no no no. We want you to ski. We want you to have fun,’” he said.

However, the limited terrain is not working for everyone. Filipe Fernandez, who is visiting with a group of about 20 people from Guatemala, said the group plans to cancel the remainder of its trip if more terrain does not open by Tuesday.

“And obviously because of our bad experience, we’ll never come back here again. It’s a lose-lose situation, because everyone is losing – the visitors, the restaurants, the hotels. Everyone is losing and the mountain is empty,” Fernandez said.

Telluride Ski Resort and the Telluride Ski Patrol Union met Saturday and Sunday for contract negotiations and are planning to meet again Monday evening. The resort said it is working to open as much terrain as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, the Telluride School District is making contingency plans for its Ski PE program. On Friday, Superintendent John Pandolfo sent a letter to families notifying them that all winter physical education classes, including Ski PE, would be canceled for the week. The district plans to assess the situation on a week-by-week basis for the remainder of the season.

“Most optimistically things will be resolved and/or more of the mountain will be opened and we can make a well-informed decision that we feel is in the best interest of our students and our families to send students up on the mountain. But that’s going to depend on a lot of different things – including mother nature,” Pandolfo said.

The school district does not charge specifically for the Winter PE program. Pandolfo said any reimbursement would need to come from the ski company or another organization.

“We know all of this is really hard on families. After I sent my message on Friday, I got some immediate responses from families that said ‘we are struggling enough that we probably need a full rebate if we can get it’. Our hearts go out to everyone who is impacted,” he said.

Pandolfo said he remains hopeful.

“We have a long way to go. It’s Jan. 5. I’m still banking 10 feet of snow before we get to April, and everything else resolving. We just have to be hopeful and play it by ear,” he said.

Some youth ski programs, including the Comets, plan to move forward with skiing on Lift 1 for the time being.