Who is going to run the lifts, serve your food and make your beds?

American ski resorts have for many years relied upon cheap international students and backpackers to fill the seasonal positions which they were unable to be fill from their local domestic workforce.

Resorts such as Copper Mountain and Breckenridge rely heavily on this available workforce, normally young Southern Hemisphere students on their summer breaks and it always added to the charachter of the resort to hear the cheery call of ' Good Day Mate' or a ' No worries Cobber' as you ordered a beer or sat on a lift.

However changes in immigration law which have occurred in the last week have the potential to severely limit services and drive skiing and snowboarding prices skyhigh as resorts turn to the more expensive 'native' workforce to run the restauraunts, sell you your lift pass ,fit your ski hire and clean and service your hotels.

Traditonally resorts used the H-2B visa to grant grant temporary seasonal status to potential employees engaged in non-agricultural labor, and this year they have been set with a 33,000 cap for the whole country. These places have already been filled and the 50,000 outstanding applications are likely to be turned down unless resorts lobby their politicians quick. Even if Congress does change it's mind there is no guarentee that your friendly 'Sheila' will be in place for the Christmas.