It’s a question that Sierra-at-Tahoe Resort employees are frequently asked during the off season. For a business that is operational 4 1/2 months out of the year, it’s reasonable enough to wonder what goes on the rest of the time.

Trust me – we are busy the whole time. From snowcats and snowmobiles to the facilities and infrastructure to the chair lifts, offices, locker rooms, and fleet vehicles – everything needs to be maintained, rebuilt, repainted, reconstructed, fixed up, broken down, cleaned out, and rethought.

One of the ongoing tasks over the summer months is picking up trash. You wouldn’t believe how much trash accumulates all over the parking lots and on the mountain in 4 1/2 months. It takes us most of the summer plus Keep Sierra Clean Day in October to get it all into dumpsters.

So each Tuesday morning, all of the summertime employees get together in a parking lot, or some other area that needs some TLC, with trash bags and gloves and pickers, and gets to work cleaning it up. This past week was the second week in a row we tackled D Lot. It looks like it will take a third week just to clean up this one lot.

It takes a lot of helping hands to keep our mountain environment clean and we’ll take all the help we can get! Please be responsible about your trash during the winter months and make sure you find a trash or recycle can. Be conscious about litter that might fly away if you are tailgating and if you drop something on the mountain, pick it up. We can all be part of the solution if we take responsibility for the consequences of our own actions.