Visitors fill resort and towns during busy holiday

CBMR tops 6,000 skier visits in a single day

If the crowds on Elk Avenue have you thinking it’s busy in town, you’re right. Skier numbers at Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) have the base area practically bursting at its seams, and over the last couple of weeks, CBMR lodging has sold out several different nights.

The swell in numbers has the service industry and emergency response personnel on their toes, and the consensus everywhere is that it hasn’t been this busy for a while. A slowdown is coming, but things will stay busy through New Year’s weekend, and January as a whole is projected to be up over last year.

A return to record numbers on the hill
According to Erica Mueller, CBMR’s director of innovations and relations, the resort surpassed 6,000 skier visits on the ski hill on both Monday, December 29 and Tuesday, December 30. “We haven’t hit those numbers in the last few years,” she said, adding that it’s all hands on deck to give all those visitors a great Crested Butte experience.
“A lot of us have been helping out at various operational departments over the last week and I’ve seen lots of smiling faces around. People are excited to be here, whether it’s their first time or they’ve been coming here for 30 years. I don’t think we’ll fully know the impact of the Christmas week for another week or so, but so far so good,” Mueller said.
Over Christmas, skier days were up 18 percent and room nights were up 28 percent, even selling out for a couple of nights. New Year’s week was also ahead of last year, up 17 percent in room nights and skier visits following suit—lodging even sold out again between December 29 and 31.
“Don’t expect things to die down until after the weekend,” Mueller said.
The Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce is also seeing signs that this Christmas season is busier than last year’s. Chamber director Dave Ochs said the number of visitors seeking information about the area is definitely up, with an energy level reminiscent of summer. “We’re definitely seeing similar numbers [to July] of visitors come in and ask questions,” Ochs said.
Between December 20 and December 30, the visitor center at the Four-way Stop has seen 22 percent more walk-in inquiries.
And while Ochs attributes some of that increase to the extended Butte Bucks program, he also pointed out that it’s the Mt. Crested Butte Visitor Center that’s really taken a leap over last year. Walk-ins have more than doubled, with staff helping more than 100 people a day.  
For the most part, all of those visitors have been able to get in and out of the valley—albeit sometimes without their luggage. Rick Lamport, general manager of the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport, said only a couple of flights from Denver have been canceled due to weather at Denver International Airport, and no flights have been cancelled due to conditions in Gunnison.
“Denver has had a lot of back-up,” Lamport said. “They’ve been hit hard by adverse weather.” He did note that when the night flight into Gunnison has been canceled, United has made every effort to offer an early-morning flight the next day. That delays passengers, but does give them alternative options.
Perhaps the largest complaint about getting in and out of the valley has been lost luggage. One December 26 flight from Houston arrived full but reportedly left 192 ski bags behind, including three belonging to LaRonda and Randall White. Armed with the cowboy boots on their feet and not much else, it took four days to get their bags to Gunnison. And while local airport representatives were as helpful as they could be, trying to work with United Airlines was not easy.
“I bet we’ve spent four hours on hold on that phone trying to get them to tell us where our bags were,” LaRonda White said, noting that when they got to talk to people instead of answering services, they were located in India and had no idea what happened to their luggage. Their advice? Buy what you need while you wait.
“I tried to explain to them that there were 45 people in one tiny store in a tiny town that might have one size extra large in the whole store, trying to buy gear,” White continued. She said the airline has promised to reimburse her up to $250, but she spent significantly more than that between herself, her husband and her son. They plan to return to the Valley—even looking at homes to buy—but will do whatever it takes to avoid flying United in the future.

Emergency services hopping, too
The boost in visitors has created a high demand for emergency services. The Crested Butte Fire Protection District and the Mt. Crested Butte Police Department have both seen an uptick in calls. Mike Scott, EMS coordinator for the Fire Protection District, said he has regularly had a second and even third ambulance crew on the clock, and last weekend, all four ambulances were out at one time—which appears to be a record.
“It’s definitely been very, very busy,” Scott said. “We can’t even recall a time when we had four ambulances out at a time, and we had them out on Sunday. We’ve actually blown up our record for the most calls run ever.”
In 2006, the Fire Protection District ran 547 fire and EMS calls. This year, Scott says, with two days left to count, the district had run 568. Fortunately, the increase in calls appears to be a result of the swell in visitors rather than an increase in the severity of injuries.
“It’s your average broken leg, ski accident, fall on the ice—those types of normal winter activities. There hasn’t been anything out of the ordinary,” Scott explained.  
That corresponds with what Sargent Brad Phelps is seeing at the Mt. Crested Butte Police Department. The added volume hasn’t come with increased seriousness, and he says the calls are about what you’d expect with this many people in town—parking problems, pedestrians on the road, and people problems.
“It’s a lot of busy-work,” he said. “But that’s to be expected when you’re back to ski-free numbers.”
In Crested Butte, the Marshals are dealing with their fair share of activity, but chief marshal Tom Martin doesn’t think it’s too out of the ordinary either. “Every year these 10 or 12 days of Christmas and New Year’s just jumpstart our winter,” Martin said. “It seems busier than it has been for the last two months every year at this time, but it always feels busy in the several days just before Christmas.”
And on the mountain, Mueller says CBMR hasn’t seen anything out of the ordinary when it comes to safety or injuries, either.
There have, however, been some close calls. When 911 was called for a seven-year-old boy in respiratory failure at a base area hotel, EMS responded to the call. According to Scott,  the incident was not the result of trauma or injury—a visitor to the area, the boy had been seen in a clinic earlier that day and he was air-lifted to St. Mary’s Hospital and then on to a children’s hospital for treatment when his condition worsened.
For Scott, the incident emphasized the quality of care available in the Gunnison Valley, especially during a time of such high need. “They truly saved that kid’s life,” Scott said. “If it wasn’t for the quick response of the first responders and the clinic, that kid wouldn’t have made it.”

Looking ahead to January
After the New Year, things will slow down, although not as much as last year. According to Mueller, the resort’s projections show that the month of January will be consistently busier than it was in 2014.
“January is always a month for opportunity in the ski industry, and this year we have done a good job driving more January business,” she said. Room nights are up 28 percent, which will result in more skiers and more people in town, but certainly not to the level seen over the holidays. Mueller also explained that January is a great time to drive regional visitors by promoting snowfall, advertising to Front Range crowds and Rocky Mountain Super Pass Plus holders, who have three days of skiing at CBMR.
“It tends to be more of a last-minute booking crowd with those people though, so we are doing our best to continue those messages in the marketplace and get more visitors for the month and throughout the rest of the season,” Mueller said.
There is snow in the forecast, and that’s always a help. Thanks to recent snow, CBMR has opened some extreme terrain over the last week, including West Wall, Horseshoe, Hot Rocks, Lower Peel and Forest. And while snow safety teams are doing control work right now—the consensus being that the base is good—it will take another storm or two to open more extreme terrain.