Volunteers Keep Anchorage Ski Areas Running Through Cooking, Shoveling, Teaching

Kurt Meehleis learned to ski at Hilltop Ski Area as a kid. Now he shows up every winter to give it back.

As a snowboard instructor running Hilltop's "Hot Doggers" beginner class, Meehleis has guided hundreds of students down the Anchorage hill's chairlift and onto the snow below. "Every lesson should be unique," he said. "It's like a puzzle every time you get a new student." Some of those former students have looped back as instructors themselves, keeping institutional knowledge inside the community and the teaching staff growing at no cost.

That volunteer ethic is the operating model behind all three Southcentral Alaska nonprofit ski areas. At Hilltop, Arctic Valley and Skeetawk, a mix of paid staff and unpaid community members cook food, shovel snow and train the next generation of skiers and snowboarders. The practical outcome is lift tickets held under $100, season passes starting at $435 at Hilltop and $499 at Skeetawk, and cross-resort exchange agreements covering six Alaska nonprofits plus eight partner hills from Washington to Oregon to Idaho.

Robert DeBerry, Hilltop's community development manager, describes the motivation plainly. "We're here because we love it," he said. "We work in an industry that is all about fun and giving people that community, camaraderie and glue that holds us all together." He added that Hilltop's roots run deep enough in Anchorage that "you can go almost anywhere in Anchorage, throw a rock in a crowd and hit somebody that has a Hilltop story."

Arctic Valley, operated by the Anchorage Ski Club since the club's founding in 1937, publishes a frank accounting of what volunteers replace: without unpaid labor, lift ticket prices would rise. Volunteers who complete a shift earn a complimentary ticket; those who return for multiple shifts earn transferable vouchers. The skills the club draws on span the full width of nonprofit operations, from snow removal and lift maintenance to web design, fundraising and grant writing.

At Skeetawk in Hatcher Pass, General Manager Megan Justus built the area's identity around accessibility. Weekend day passes run $44 for adults, $25 for youth, and $15 for seniors. "Our entire mission is about keeping people healthy and active, especially during winter when that can be really hard," Justus said.

For North Slope communities where winter sports programs run on limited budgets and local initiative, the model these three hills use offers a concrete blueprint. Nonprofit 501(c)3 status unlocks grant eligibility. Volunteer labor presses payroll costs down. Reciprocal pass-sharing with partner nonprofits adds membership value without adding operating expense. And a culture of former participants becoming current instructors, as Meehleis's own career illustrates, turns program alumni into program infrastructure.