America's Toughest Winter Jobs: A Day at Utah's Snowbird Ski Resort

SNOWBIRD, Utah, Feb. 10, 2010— -- We all know the old saying that you can't really understand another person's job until you've walked a mile in their shoes. Well what if those shoes are heavy, clunky ski boots?

Somehow I found myself one morning before dawn at the top of a mountain, in near blizzard conditions, climbing an iced-over metal ladder. Did I mention the ski boots?

I had come to the Snowbird Ski Resort to find out what it was like to bring this mountain to life each morning. My timing couldn't have been better: I arrived in the middle of a seven-day period where the ski area saw a whopping seven feet of snow. Needless to say, that complicated matters.

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The first thing to "wake" at the resort is the iconic 120-person tram, which climbs 2,900 feet in about 8 minutes. Before the ski patrol and lift operators can get to their positions, Richard Duckworth and his crew make sure the tram is up and running.

Each morning starts with routine safety checks to ensure that the communications and mechanical equipment are working. But this wasn't any ordinary morning. High winds are a tram's worst enemy. One gauge said that overnight the storm winds had gusted to more than 40 mph. Before running the tram, Duckworth needed to figure out if the winds had died down to a safe enough speed. The problem: he couldn't trust his gauges.

"It's not necessarily that it's always true thanks to ice getting on the wind cups," he said.