Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
When people think of mountain resorts, they picture slicing through fresh snow on skis or snowboards, enjoying the nightlife at bars and restaurants, or family time – tubing and even swimming.
What they don’t think about is the mental health of the part-time and full-time employees who work at these resorts.
Seeing an increase in suicide rates in Wyoming, Montana and Colorado – all homes to huge “mountain towns,” Olympic ski racer Bode Miller and Emmy Award-winning impact sports filmmaker Brett Rapkin set out to make a documentary – “The Paradise Paradox” – which examines the mental health crisis in these mountain towns and what the resorts are doing to help their employees.
Featuring several resorts owned and operated by Alterra Mountain Company, the documentary does a deep dive into the underbelly of working at a high octane winter resort.
Snowshoe Mountain Resort is not featured in the film, but it is a member of the Alterra family. Understanding the importance of addressing mental health issues, the resort hosted a showing of the documentary at the Inn at Snowshoe.
Sponsored by Alterra Foundation and Snowshoe Senior Leadership team, the event included two showings of the documentary, with movie theater style snacks and seafood.
“We’re really trying to get people to come and hear the message,” Snowshoe community liaison Tracey Valach said. “I think it’s been really well received so far.”
There were also several community partners in attendance to offer support to anyone who wanted to continue to discuss mental health issues: they included Scott McGee, of Seneca Mental Health; Erin Gaertner, of Jobs and Hope; D. Joy Szafraniec, of Evolve Wellbeing LLC; Pocahontas County Youth Prevention Coalition; Serenity in the Mountain local AA chapter and local para-athlete Kinzie Dickman were all available to speak to employees after the film.
Talking about mental health issues can be difficult, and Valach said she hopes the documentary and the display of services available in the county will encourage Snowshoe employees and community members to seek help.
“We see it here, too,” she said. “Everything’s going, going, going and then in the spring, everybody leaves. All the restaurants close, a lot of resources go away and those social opportunities go away. Then summer, they pick back up again and then they die down in early fall, and then in winter, they ramp back up and they die down.
“We also see it with abandonment feelings because you build these really nice relationships with these people and then they leave,” she continued. “There’s a lot of that for the people who live here year-round.”
More than 100 employees and community members attended the screening and Valach said she has already had requests to have another screening from those who could not attend.
Alterra offers employees and their family members access to six free mental health sessions.
For more information on “The Paradise Paradox,” view the trailer here – https://youtu.be/rfKvJScZJDg?si=ihH-q0IWLA-9jxqX
