PITTED

The dish pit isn’t the easiest place to work at the lodge, but it has its perks. You don’t have to interact with guests, semi-affectionately known as “Jerrys” or “goblins,” depending on the mood. The shifts are great for ski hours, and you can get away with showing up to work exhausted, smelly, or—god forbid—less than sober. The tele skiers working the dessert and salad counter sometimes slip you leftover ice cream. Half-full pitchers of beer are never hard to find, particularly if you’re not above a lukewarm mix of Cutthroat Ale and PBR. When you’re skiing every day, happiness comes easy. So this winter, belting Madonna at the top of my lungs with a bunch of skiers in aprons as we closed up the kitchen at Alta’s Goldminer’s Daughter, felt like something close to a dream job.

I took to showing up for my shifts as a dishwasher with my braids dripping with melting snow, face wind-chapped, legs too spent to squat down and put away precariously stacked dishes. If I really hustled, I could ski until 1:55 p.m., sprint to the basement, swap my ski gear for kitchen attire, and run to the lodge’s third-floor restaurant in time for my 2 p.m. shift. My fellow dishwasher, a quiet Northeasterner named Ben, was on a similar program, though he often started a ski tour three hours before I woke up.

Ben walked me through the basics on my first day. There’s not much to washing dishes—efficiency and