Telluride is back open for business, and hoping crowds will come to the Colorado ski town

After more than a week of silence on the slopes, the lifts are spinning again at Telluride Ski Resort. But for the town of Telluride, business owners are worried the damage from the ski patrol strike may take longer to undo.

The strike shut down the resort the day after Christmas, one of the most critical stretches of the winter season. For 13 days, skiing stopped entirely, and so did much of the town's economic engine.

Local business owners say the timing could not have been worse.

"It feels like COVID," said Mary Kenez, owner of Woof, a longtime local business. "It's almost a ghost town downtown ... people are talking about asking for rent reductions because we don't know when it's coming back."

Kenez says some days during the strike brought just a single sale, a dramatic drop during what should have been peak season.

Hotels felt the hit as well. Estimates show bookings dropped by roughly 50% compared to the same time last year as out-of-town visitors canceled trips when the mountain closed. 

John Nahill, who traveled from Boston with extended family, said they planned their Telluride trip months in advance, only to be hit with a nasty surprise.

"We were reading that there was a strike and wondering, 'A strike couldn't possibly shut down the mountain,'" Nahill said. "And sure enough, it did."

His family had already rented a large house and booked flights. By the time the strike ended, many relatives had already told their employers they were returning to work, making it impossible to reassemble the full group, but after getting new flights, the family members who did make it out started having fun.

"The conditions are fabulous and it's not very crowded," Nahill said. "It's worked out for the best ... I would encourage everybody to come."

It's a message local business owners are eager to amplify.

Josh Klein, a Telluride restaurant owner, says the town is now focused on recovery, not blame for what's happened.

"A week ago we didn't know where we were going," Klein said. "Now we're struggling to figure out how to get back on track."

He says a few restaurants are offering deals, hotels have availability and cheaper prices, and skier numbers remain unusually low so guests are ending up with a premiere experience on the slopes.

"Today we probably had under 1,000 skiers on the hill," Klein said. "The mountain feels like a country club. It's amazing skiing."

Klein believes February and March could still bring a rebound, but only if visitors return soon.

"It's a 'hurry up and get it back together and tell everybody' message right now," he said. "Everyone knows Telluride is good, and people come back here."

On the other side of the dispute, ski patrollers acknowledge the toll the strike took on the community.

"It was worse than we expected," said Bailey Mallette, a line patroller with the Telluride Professional Ski Patrol Association, Local 7781. "We saw how bad it could be, but this was the only leverage we had."

Mallette says patrollers were fighting for higher wages and better retention, particularly for younger workers who often commute from towns more than an hour away.

After months of negotiations, the union says the resort would not move on key contract issues, leading to the strike. In the end, patrollers secured wage increases and protections for supervisors, though they did not achieve changes to the long term wage structure.

"We're counting our wins," Mallette said. "But we know a lot of people were affected. These are our neighbors, this is our community."

The strike lasted 13 days, one day longer than the Park City strike last year. Mallette notes that for a town where much of the annual income is earned in roughly 22 winter weeks, losing nearly two of them is significant.

"Those 13 days are a long time for our community," he said.

Now, the union and local businesses share the same goal: getting people back to Telluride.

"I want to encourage everybody to come," Mallette said. "Spend your money in the businesses. There are no grudges, we all want the town to heal."

The union's current contract lasts three years. While the possibility of another strike exists if negotiations fail in the future, both sides say no one wants to repeat what happened.

For now, Telluride is open, the snow is skiing well, and crowds are thin.