The ski patrol strike has ended. It didn’t need to happen, and it’s puzzling what line of decisions pushed it over the cliff.   Maybe the most perplexing thing is the lack of public response from the Vail Resorts corporate headquarters, affectionately known as the Death Star. Crickets. The assumption seemed to be that it was a local kerfuffle that would be over and done in a matter of a day or two. Nothing to see here, folks. That will be $315 at the ticket window for 20% of the product. Of course, it didn’t stay local. It’s not surprising that among the thousands of out-of-state visitors in Park City over the holidays, there might be a few Wall Street types, national news media folks, and rich people not accustomed to having their vacations spoiled over $2 an hour. I don’t know who could have anticipated that, except perhaps the entire marketing department at the Death Star, who has been enticing these very sorts of people to visit for years.When CNBC talking head Jim Lebenthal used a bit of air time that was supposed to be about something else to vent about his wrecked Park City/Vail Resorts vacation, he launched the local matter into national news.  My only thought was, “What took so long?” I watched the Park City Mountain website, looking for something that might let a person booking the experience of a lifetime for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend know that things are off the rails, and there is no mention of it.  So if people missed it splattered all over in The New York Times, CNN, USA Today, and dozens of other national outlets, they were making very expensive plans in the dark.  The Park City Chamber’s website didn’t give any kind of heads up, either.Somewhere in the depths of a company worth $6.6 billion, you would think there was a ninja crisis management team who could have propped up a corporate spokesperson and given a statement to the effect that they were “sorry for the impact this labor dispute is having on our guests. Please join us at one of our other lovely Epic Pass properties where the employees have not actually walked out just yet. We look forward to a prompt and amicable resolution to the dispute, making Park City even better in the future.”  Or not. They could just let the local folks twist in the wind.Meanwhile, news of litigation in California and Colorado over Vail’s labor practices, overtime and work conditions that normally would go completely unnoticed got moved front and center, confirming the impression that the Park City Mountain ski patrol union is not the party at fault in this one. That and 3,500 people donating more than a quarter million dollars to the strike fund.By way of contrast, when a guy blew up himself and a Tesla Cybertruck on the front steps of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, crazy Elon Musk raced to the cameras to twist that tragedy into a statement about how durable his ugly trucks are, and that a less Dumpster-like vehicle would not have contained the blast, resulting in more bystanders being injured. So there are ways to manage a public relations crisis.What’s being overlooked here, and I am somewhat reluctant to bring it up after several years of relative quiescence, is the ParkWest Curse. It was a widely held belief around here from the 1970s until, well, until lunch this afternoon, that the property on which the old ParkWest Resort was built is under an ancient Indian Curse.  It dates back 1,200 years to the Fremont people. No one knows what affront has the Fremont spirits so riled up (the chili at the old Buffalo Bob’s café is a good guess), but the spirits are restless, to say the least.  There is believed to be a vortex of negative energy there. Through decades, the vortex has attracted owners who, shall we say in the interest of potential litigation, have been an unusual and interesting assortment of characters. There’s no way to prove such a theory, other than to look at the history. It offers no other explanation. The curse didn’t go away as ParkWest became Wolf Mountain, The Canyons, then just Canyons (without the “The,” which was seized by creditors), and then bought by Vail and merged into Park City Mountain. One thing about the Fremont people: They know how to carry a grudge.  It will be complicated putting it all back together. Some people who moved here to work for the ski season will have starved out and gone home. They expected full-time work in December and it didn’t happen. Is there anybody left to run all those lifts and staff the additional food operations? It’s hard to know what a return to “normal” looks like. We might look back at the $9 hotdog season fondly.It would be great if everybody now shares that kumbaya moment, and all pull together as a team. That’s a big ask, but possible. And necessary. I’d recommend calling in some kind of shaman to give the place a good sage blessing/cleansing, followed by an exorcism. The vortex needs to be sealed up again. Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.The post More Dogs on Main: The vortex is open again appeared first on Park Record.