Top Five Fridays: April 17, 2026
Looking to get some late season park laps in? Mammoth might be your best bet, as they just extended their season thanks to some late season snow. More on that below! Image: Mammoth Mountain on Facebook
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the April 17th, 2026 edition! This week, we’ve got plenty of fun topics to talk about, from season extensions, to FIS Prize Money rankings, and the latest from this year’s edition of the Natural Selection Ski event. Plus, we have coverage of yet another lawsuit aimed at Vail - this one of the class action variety and backed by over 2,000 ski instructors. We’ll tell you all you need to know there, but first, let’s talk NST.
#1: After Pivoting Venues Due to Avalanche Risks, the Second Natural Selection Ski Event Went Off Without a Hitch:
Don’t have time for the full replay? Scroll down and check out the highlight reel that we included in our edits of the week!
If you’re a regular reader of ours here on Top Five Fridays, then you likely know that we’ve been looking forward to this year’s edition of the Natural Selection Ski event ever since last year’s competition wrapped up. From the announcement of a qualifier event in Palisades to wildcard invites, the story of this year’s event was slowly revealed as the season progressed. As such, there was much anticipation regarding the competition, particularly when looking back on the insanity that occurred on last year’s venue.
Unfortunately, this year’s event was forced to pivot to a much lower angle venue, giving it a much different feel than last year’s stop. In the broadcast shared by Natural Selection, we were shown a preview of the initially planned venue called “Spine Cell”, which featured an insane amount of incredibly steep, defined Alaskan spines. On the day of the event however, athletes noticed a significant slide and after further evaluation, safety coordinators determined it to be unsafe. As a result, Travis Rice and his crew took to the skies to secure a new location. Ultimately they were able to find a much lower angle zone that featured a series of windlips and small drops, giving the event much more of a freestyle focus than originally planned.
With the new venue selected, the story of the event became one in which athletes learned more about the terrain with every run. At first, athletes were making glorious powder turns between features, but ultimately found themselves coming up short on their airs. By the end of the event however, the move had become straight lining between features and packing in as many tricks as possible. Once that strategy was unlocked, athletes let loose on the course.
Throughout the day, there were a number of ridiculous tricks and efforts, and every athlete truly looked as though they belonged at the event. At the end of the day though, it was Manon Loschi who won the event on the women’s side, defending her title from last season. While the entirety of her run was impressive, it was her massive double backflip that set her apart from the competition. For the men, it was event newcomer Colby Stevenson who took the day, having not only absolutely stomped a picture perfect double cork 1080 on the largest feature of the venue, but also connected a series of additional tricks on every feature he hit. All said and done, while this year’s event showcased a decidedly different type of skiing, it was still another compelling and highly entertaining competition. If you have time, we recommend giving it a full watch. For a full breakdown of results, click here.
#2: Want to Know How Much Your Favorite FIS Alpine Ski Racer Earned in Prize Money This Year? Now, You Can:
For Mikaela Shiffrin, it was another successful season - not only in terms of accolades, but in regards to prize money as well. Image: FIS Alpine World Cup Tour on Facebook
In other competitive news this week, we want to take a moment to share some of the prize money earnings from FIS World Cup U.S. Alpine athletes this winter (shout out to SnowBrains for helping us discover this information). While there’s a part of this story that’s fun to simply explore the numbers, it’s also interesting information to have when contextualizing a number of other stories from throughout the ski world. Before diving deeper into those, let’s start with some basics.
First and foremost, one thing to keep in mind as we work through some of these numbers is that the FIS has committed to offering equal cash purses at each event for both men and women. In other words, first place in any race, whether in the men’s or women’s category, is worth 47,000 Euros (about $53,000 USD). This is helpful to keep in mind as it truly does allow us to directly compare the success of the top men’s and women’s athletes. With that, let’s get to the big reveals.
Your top earner on this year’s FIS Alpine World Cup was Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt, who took home 741,254 Euros ($872,815 USD). On the women’s side, it was none other than Mikaela Shiffrin, with roughly $724,350 USD. While these figures are intriguing, they’re not particularly surprising. Where this list becomes more fun, is when we work our way down it. Behind Shiffrin, the next highest earning U.S. athlete was Lindsey Vonn, who was the 8th highest paid woman, earning $250,820 USD. While Vonn is likely doing just fine financially, and her upcoming decision regarding a potential return post injury, it’s hard to ignore this aspect of her decision. Afterall, she earned a cool quarter million for a few months of racing, and who knows how high that number could have grown had she been able to stay healthy for the entire season.
Directly behind Vonn in the standings was Paula Moltzan, who earned roughly $232,752 on the season. Further down from her, was Breezy Johnson who was the 17th highest earner, having made $127,124 USD. Finally, we get to the first U.S. male athlete, Ryan Cochran-Siegle, who finished 23rd on the men’s list, earning $80,315 USD. From there, the numbers get a bit smaller, to the point where if you’re beyond the 25 highest earning athletes, it becomes a bit harder to justify relying on prize money as a singular income stream. Still, the fact that being a top 25 prize money earner is enough to get by in the world of alpine ski racing says something.
As we mentioned early on in this highlight, part of the value of this exercise is contextualizing other storylines. In addition to sharing prize money earnings for alpine racers, the FIS also has this information available for all disciplines. As such, it’s only natural to take a peak at other lists, like Freeski Park & Pipe. There, the top earner was Kirsty Muir from Great Britain, who took home about $72,158 USD, while the top male earner was Finley Melville Ives, who took in about $49,193 USD. In the world of Ski Jumping on the other hand, most of the top male athletes earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 USD, while the women were hovering around $100,000. Without diving in any deeper, there’s a clear takeaway here: the amount of money your favorite FIS athlete wins is highly dependent on the discipline they’re in. From there, you can splinter this topic into a thousand other conversations at your next cocktail party. To learn more and to see a full list of prize money results, head over to the official FIS website.
#3: Roughly 2,000 Ski Instructors Sign Up for Class Action Lawsuit Accusing Vail of Labor Law Violations:
By Wednesday of this week, roughly 2,000 ski instructors working at various Vail resorts joined a class action lawsuit alleging wage violations. Image: Vail Resort on Facebook
Moving right along, our third highlight this week is a story that we suspect has more bark than bite. As the headline goes, roughly 2,000 ski instructors have joined a class action lawsuit against Vail. While that may seem really, really bad for Vail - and it’s not great - the reality is that the meat of the lawsuit is somewhat lightweight. At the heart of the suit are several claims that center around potential violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. More specifically, the three employees cited as plaintiffs on the lawsuit claim that they were not compensated for the entirety of their job requirements. Even more specifically, they argue that they should have been paid for time spent changing into and out of their uniforms, work performed while commuting between job sites, locker rooms, and parking lots, as well as training time. In addition to not being compensated for this time spent on tasks related to the job, they’re also seeking reimbursement for equipment used for the job (ie. skis, snowboards, boots, etc), as well as work related cell phone costs.
In some ways, it’s an interesting case, as it can be argued that many of these things, such as commuting to work, are work related. That being said, it’s not standard procedure in any industry to compensate for travel to work. In fact, not being lawyers ourselves, we wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out that there’s already legislation regarding this specific issue. Regardless, this case could challenge that.
A bit more unique to the world of skiing and snowboarding, is the cost of work related expenses. Here, the line gets blurrier. In other working worlds, if a worker uses their own equipment and tools on a job site, they often become contractors rather than employees. That subtle distinction ends up making a pretty significant difference for both parties when it comes to things like how taxes are handled, benefits such as health insurance, and even hourly wages. In this particular case, the judge will be responsible for drawing that line as it relates to ski equipment, and while unlikely, could shakeup the way ski instructors are paid and hired. As for what we think will actually happen? Vail will probably settle, the 2,000 instructors who signed onto the class action lawsuit will make a small amount of money, and life will go on. To learn more about this story, check in with Vail Daily. To see more about the lawsuit itself, head to https://www.vailresortsinstructorwagelitigation.com/.
#4: Thanks to Recent Storms, Mammoth Mountain & Copper Extend Seasons:
Excluding glaciers, Mammoth Mountain is once again set to be the last operating ski resort this season, thanks to a recent storm that delivered feet of base building snow. Image: Mammoth Mountain on Facebook
Finally, we round things out this week with a bit of good news: thanks to recent snowstorms, two western mountains have announced extensions to their seasons. First up on that list is Mammoth Mountain, who was hit by a solid late season storm last weekend that ultimately left 31” of snow on the ground. While it wasn’t exactly the type of storm that resulted in plentiful powder turns, as high winds created a dense snowpack and shut down upper mountain lift operations, it was still a blessing as it put down the additional snowpack that allowed the resort to double down on its commitment to stay open until at least Memorial Day.
In other news, Copper Mountain over in Colorado also announced this week that it will be extending its season into May. While not the recipients of a 30”+ storm, small accumulations have tallied up enough for the resort to push their closing day from April 26th to May 3rd. While it’s not a significant extension, it is an extra week of skiing, which is always better than nothing.
At present, we suspect Mammoth will be the last remaining U.S. ski area in winter operations mode. For those hoping to ski past May, your best bet in North America will be Timberline, who has a current closing date of July 19th - later than Mammoth, but earlier than usual. For more on this, check out this report covering Mammoth’s recent snow, as well as this report regarding Timberline’s closing date.