Hundreds of dedicated ski instructors and patrollers work for Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley Resort every winter. These professionals are true winter warriors, but how do they make a living after the snow melts? Read on about four folks who have figured it out; you will be amazed and impressed by their summer and autumn professions.
Patrols to Plants
Sierra Prothers’ dad taught her to ski as soon as she could walk. It’s second nature to the Massachusetts native, who ventured west in 2010 to do a college internship and fell in love with the place. She soon accepted a winter job ski patrolling at Park City Mountain Resort, a job she’d done before in New Hampshire. In 2016, she switched to Deer Valley Resort.
“I can’t think of a better job. It’s all I’ve ever done in the winter,” she says. Her favorite part of the job is being able to go to work every day with her dog, Maggie, a black Lab trained as an avalanche search-and-rescue dog. The two are nearly inseparable.
When that first winter released its grip, she turned her attention to community-supported agriculture. “My first go at it was pretty successful; I just planted some seeds and grew way too much food, which I gave away to all my friends and neighbors,” she explains. The idea had been planted, and Prothers was in business.
She bought a house on an acre near Heber City, began growing a variety of produce and partnered with about 30 area families who wanted to buy locally grown items. These customers essentially provide the start-up funding every spring to pay for seed and soil. In return, they get a variety of in-season produce every week. Prothers has since expanded the business she named Casperville Creations and now leases additional farmland in the area.
“Most of our crops are grown in the ground, but some are grown in our temperature-controlled greenhouse, such as tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers,” says Prothers. She also sells produce on Saturdays from June through October at the farmers market in nearby Midway and to a few restaurants there and in Park City.
Slopes to rapids
Come summer, veteran ski instructor and coach Bob Skinner sheds his ski parka, straps on a life jacket and casts off as a Grand Canyon Expeditions guide on an iconic 260-mile reach of the Colorado River. After answering an ad for a river guide in Outside magazine, he’s been doing the same thing every year for more than 30 years. It has become a pilgrimage for the affable 60-plus-year-old, who’s chalked up an incredible 300-plus trips through some of the most challenging whitewater in the world.
What draws him back to this river year after year? “It’s a beautiful place, and you’re taking people down the river who have never seen anything like this before. Yes, it’s hard work,” he says, “but if you go to bed tired that’s a good day.”
Winding his way through legendary rapids like Crystal and Lava Falls, Skinner has a well-earned reputation as a highly skilled boatman. “It’s challenging and exciting to make a good run and give folks a good ride. You don’t ever want to hurt anybody, but you do want to give them what they came for,” he says, admitting a love for taking the big rapids head on.
What’s the most challenging part for his passengers? “You’ve got to be OK going to the potty outdoors,” he chuckles.
Skinner takes his skiing head on as well, comparing it to river running. “You’re always expected to perform at a high level,” he says. Already an expert skier and racer when he moved to Park City from New Jersey 40 years ago, Skinner was soon working as a ski instructor at Park City Mountain Resort ski school.
“I’ve mostly always taught advanced skiers who wanted to get into racing. Teaching beginners is really hard work,” he confesses. He makes an exception if he’s teaching an entire family. “That first day on the mountain is like the first day on a river trip, really getting to know the people,” he explains.
Moguls to movie sets
Jill Adler moved to Park City from California in 1990. Skiing has been her passion since first hitting the slopes at age 6 at Mammoth Mountain Resort, but she never imagined winding up as a career ski instructor. Thirty-five years later, first employed at Deer Valley and now at Park City Mountain, Adler jokes that it was the only job that fit her lifestyle.
“It was always that thing that I could do well,” she says. “There are so many reasons I teach. I like meeting new people, and I like sharing my passion. I love skiing, and I feel like the majority of people who show up for a lesson want to love skiing too. If I can help them have a really fun day — where they want to come back — then I feel good about that.”
When ski season is over, Adler turns to her other passion: acting. “I have a master’s degree in broadcast, so I’ve always had a thing for the camera. Luckily, Utah has a decent film industry but I’ve started to work in Los Angeles as well,” she says. With the advent of self-tapes (where you record and submit an audition rather than meet in person), she can live anywhere.
Because most of the filming in Utah takes place from April through December, it’s the perfect gig for a ski instructor. Adler has appeared in several Hallmark and Lifetime films, including Twelve Gifts of Christmas, Hot Chocolate Holiday and Timeless Love. She’s had roles as a newscaster on “Yellowstone” and can be heard reporting on KSL NewsRadio in Salt Lake City on occasion.
The veteran actor embraces her active, sometimes chaotic, outdoor lifestyle in Park City. “People sometimes ask me if I will ever retire. Retire from what? My work is my life; so, yeah, no. That won’t happen.” Adler’s daughter is following in her footsteps, studying film and screenwriting at Chapman University in Southern California. “I told her I would support her as long as she writes me leading roles,” she says with a grin.
Avalanche to fire control
For more than 10 years, David Telian was a wildland firefighter in the summer and a ski patroller in the winter at Park City. Both jobs suited him like a glove. “They kept me outside, working in a team environment, which I like,” he explains.
Telian became a smoke jumper with the U.S. Forest Service in 2014, and for the next six years parachuted into wildfires throughout the country. “It’s a unique work environment because of how dangerous it is,” he says.
Working as a ski patroller is similar in many respects. “There are high-risk aspects as a patroller, especially when it comes to avalanche control. Also, I think people are drawn to the service aspect of patrolling — that was the case for me. Just helping people out, making someone’s day, knowing you made a difference in how bad an injury could have been, that is great,” he says.
Telian married Molly, a former co-worker, in 2018. When their daughter, Bailey, was born in 2020, he realized his vagabond lifestyle had to end. Telian decided to put his years of experience to work not fighting but preventing wildfires. With on-the-ground experience regarding wildland fire behavior and prevention, he teamed up with another former smoke jumper to start Alpine Forestry. The fledgling company got off to a good start and today manages several fuels-reduction projects in and around Park City, where wildfire danger is on the rise.
Trading smoke jumping for parenting was tough, but Telian has no regrets. He says both jobs have one thing in common: they’re not boring!
These four adventurous locals have crafted year-round lifestyles doing what they love. So the next time you’re on the ski hill, strike up a conversation with an instructor or patroller and ask them what they do in the summer. You might hear quite a story.
