Search Results for: resort town life

Crested Butte Bike Week ready to roll

Chainless, Fat Tire 40, Oskar Blues, clinics and more

The oldest mountain bike festival in America, 34 years old to be exact, is gearing up for four days of non-stop activities for all things mountain bike starting Thursday, June 26 and rolling through Sunday, June 29. Read More »

Caught in a bad housing circle

Coming back to Crested Butte from an east coast beach town I was struck by the difference in signs. Not the signage of the communities in general but by the ‘Help Wanted’ signs proliferating around this town. Scratching the surface, it is apparent that Crested Butte employers are having some difficulty filling jobs. And anecdotally at least, it’s not a people problem but a housing problem.
Look at the classified ads in the last few papers. There are pages of employment ads. Businesses are looking for restaurant workers, private chefs, housekeepers, lodging staff, cops, retail clerks and professional positions. In the ‘For Rent’ section, there are a few houses for rent but there are almost as many ads from people seeking a room or a home.
In Hilton Head, South Carolina many of the tourist-oriented jobs listed above were obviously filled by college students taking a summer job at a cool place. Granted, the Hilton Head area is much larger than this valley and there are several nearby communities there with apartment complexes that accommodate seasonal workers.
But here, the one facility that catered to seasonal workers was condemned last winter after a major water damage incident. Marcellina Apartments in Mt. Crested Butte evicted its seasonal tenants just before the end of the ski season and the owners now plan to turn the spot into a place for high-end condos.
During last winter’s debate over the proposed Caddis Flats affordable housing project in Crested Butte, local resident Susan Eskew pointed out how many people that in the past might have rented their rooms and houses to workers have instead turned to short term rentals through websites like VRBO (Vacation Rental by Owner) or airbnb (Air bed-and-breakfast). She said tourists seek out such vacation accommodations over a boutique hotel for example given price and convenience considerations. That’s understandable on both ends. Locals can make money to pay their mortgage while visitors get a usually more affordable local place with kitchens and private hot tubs.
But that shift appears to have placed the squeeze on our seasonal workers. The jobs are here but if you can’t find a place to hang your hat and lay your head after a shift, why would you come here? The traditional work force of young workers seeking a summer (or winter) adventure in a cool mountain town are being forced elsewhere. Other places with more housing inventory are attracting workers. Caddis Flats will eventually help but is meant to not so much address this seasonal demographic since it will cater to low income but long-term residents.

Gunnison Valley Regional Housing Authority Executive Director Karl Fulmer told me this week that it’s not just the north end of the valley feeling the pressure. He too has heard that local CB business owners have expressed sincere concerns over finding enough employees in the Crested Butte area during the summer of 2014. Fulmer said he had one encounter with an Elk Avenue business owner excited by the probability of a super busy summer but frightened at the prospect of not having the staff to handle it all.  
“Not only have local business owners voiced concerns about finding housing opportunities for their employees, the Housing Authority office has also been contacted by local property management companies saying that the Gunnison Market is starting to feel an impact due to overflow from the North Valley rental market,” he said.
Fulmer feels another reason for the tightening market could be the hotter real estate market. “When resort markets improve, often we see older units that have been held by an owner through leaner times being put up for sale or converted into seasonal rentals during the high seasons. This impacts resort towns even more significantly in that the high tourist seasons require the most employees. But these high seasons are when it is most profitable to convert aging, long-term rental stock into seasonal vacation rentals or place them up for sale. Ultimately, it is important to balance land use planning and housing needs with future economic growth.”

So what to do? Should the town of Crested Butte take some of the vacant land it owns and is dedicated to affordable housing and construct a complex that is focused toward seasonal workers? That would mean fewer deed restricted single-family homes and duplexes and more apartments. The town has traditionally focused on helping to provide housing for long-term residents such as young working families. Those two groups don’t always mix well. The work and party ethic can sometimes clash.
Should CBMR perhaps think about taking some of its real estate and build low rent housing for its summer and winter seasonal workers? The company has probably looked at any property it owns as a place for high-end second homeowners as opposed to lift ops. But in the long run, maybe an apartment complex would help them out more.
Where does the town of Mt. Crested Butte come in? How about CB South or Gunnison? Those locations are not ideal for workers hoping to be close to their jobs but land is cheaper there than at the base of the ski slopes.
There is no easy solution. But the conversation needs to start. If businesses can’t hire people to fill jobs ranging from house cleaners to cops to bartenders to kitchen workers, what sort of service will all those tourists staying in the VRBO and airbnb rooms get when they come to town? If it’s not good they probably won’t come back. And if visitors don’t return, then there will eventually be plenty of places to rent for seasonal workers…but not so many jobs to fill. And that’s not really a good circle to be caught in.

It’s not just the things, it’s the attitudes that matter

The impacts of “growth” don’t just come in the form of more good things (Norton’s Notions) or more bad things (Bill Oliver’s letters). It comes with both. And I have heard the argument that even based on increasing sales tax dollars, this place really isn’t “growing” when you take into account things like inflation. Add to the fact that everyone thinks the place is about perfect when they get here and want it to stay like that moment, and you have the growth discussion.
My concern is that sometimes growth or decline in a community comes so sneakily that the nebulous “quality of life” values of a particular place get swept out, sometimes without people even realizing it.
For example, in order to make the increasing rents or higher mortgage payments that have come to the valley in the last 25 years, parents have to work more. So there’s less time to coach Little League or help with dance. Just the increased housing costs force working families away from town. There’s less opportunity to sit on a bench on Elk Avenue with an acquaintance to just catch up and exchange ideas.
It’s not just the slower small town pace but the small town attitude that can be jeopardized by change that comes with progress or decline in a town. For example, it used to be that anyone here this time of year felt a unique camaraderie for suffering together through mud season. And it was mud season. There was a lot less pavement around 30 years ago and the spring weather made everything muddy. A snowstorm in May and June would ultimately weed out those who easily went insane when the going got tough.
In the 80s and 90s, everyone (and I mean everyone from the ranchers to the old-timers to the hippies and the Realtors) would wave at each other as they passed in their vehicles. You would say hi on the sidewalk to literally everyone and get a response. Not everyone does that anymore. Certainly most people still do but others look at you when you wave or say hi like you’re a stalker on a dark city street.
Coming around a corner by the skate park a week ago, I got the one-finger wave from a speedy driver who apparently thought I cut it too short. Wow. I just heard the story of a person on a four-wheeler essentially patrolling and accosting people walking their dogs without leashes on the rec path. People get yelled at for walking on the roads in Trapper’s Crossing. The concerns of these people might be legitimate but the delivery is less small town neighbors and more inner city agro. There sometimes appears to be less tolerance for people outside of your belief system and comfort zone.

Now don’t think it was all roses back then. People fought but they did it with respect. They might throw each other through the plate glass window of the Grubstake or Kochevar’s at night but they would wave at each other in passing the next day.
 I was recently sent a reminder of the collaboration between HCCA and the Gunnison Stockgrowers Association over public land use and range reform 20 years ago. What became known as the Gunnison Working Group brought together people of this valley who might normally be on opposite sides of most fences. Such compromise and collaboration was unusual in the rest of the country (maybe more so now) but it was understood here in 1993 that working together was how things were accomplished. The then–U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt tried to take that template of enviros and ranchers working through compromise to the rest of the country. It didn’t really work. Once again, this place didn’t fit into the mainstream but it was centered on intelligence, respect and a lack of fear to be different.
Someone this past weekend described to me the vibe in town as having more of an “outlaw” feeling 20 years ago. Not in a bad way but in a fun, irreverent way. People here could be a bit crazy and do things not considered normal in other places but be unconditionally accepted in Crested Butte. There were people like Rippe and Frog and Crazy Kenny. Really smart, thoughtful, a bit odd and obviously not missing mainstream America, these characters gave depth to the place not usually seen in more typical communities. To the person making the observation, this place has gotten more conservative. His thought was that while people including families might ride the “moon bus” in 1994, these days, many new families would cover their eyes at such a sight.
And a perceived nick in the “quality of life” is not just because of more people and things. Frankly, I miss the busyness of the winters. Après’ ski was a real happening most days in the early 1990s. There were a half-dozen more places for live music on the mountain 25 years ago than there are today. But as the condos went up, the fun was torn down to make way for those lodges. And then people didn’t come to fill the new rooms perhaps because it wasn’t as much fun.
There used to be a happy holiday buzz on the slopes and in the mountain businesses for the three weeks around Christmas. Spring break was packed for a month and the streets were filled shoulder to shoulder with people speaking different languages sharing warm ski days and clear, fun evenings. There was an abundance of positive resort ski town vibes. Some of that seemed to be coming back last season but there’s just not the amount of places on the hill to create a fun party buzz as there were in the past.
    
So the “growth” debate is legitimate. All of us have to deal with the consequences—good and bad because things will change. Is there a way to find balance between growth, decline and “quality of life?” I think so. It comes by realistically addressing impacts and finding ways to mitigate those impacts so we continue to enjoy the place. If we keep making decisions based on what’s good for the people living here, Crested Butte will continue to be that somewhat funky place high in the mountains that is filled with soul.

The growth discussion needs to be real and creative

We as a community seem to be at one of those points for a necessary discussion about the general idea of growth in the valley. In every resort community the topic seems to come up on a regular basis due to some issue. In our past, it has been the idea of expanding and promoting the local festivals in the area. Other issues that triggered the discussion were things like putting in the North Face Lift, passing a tourism tax or expanding the ski area.
This particular moment in time seems to be focused on a number of things: the gut feeling of a turning economy, the rebound in some real estate prices, the debate about expanding parking near the Lower Loop, the numbers that continue to grow in the school and the town Parks and Recreation Department, the crowded buses between Gunnison and Mt. Crested Butte, the somewhat ominous feeling that this will be a verrrrry busy summer in the valley.
Our friend Bill Oliver is a consistent advocate for slowing all growth on the global, national and local levels. His letter this week on page 4 contains many good points, especially on the macro level. More and more people will certainly screw up the shifting world balance and impact our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren in the world. And it doesn’t appear that it will be a positive impact. Population growth appears at a tipping point, along with economic disparity. Historians are now counseling that losing the balance with both of those elements can bring down a civilization.
But Bill’s letter and people I’ve heard from on the street who argue for shutting the door at our current community level don’t have a suggestion about how to reasonably curb the local growth. Reading and listening between the lines, I’m assuming they want the politicos to put up the metaphorical gate. That won’t and can’t happen. And if it did, talk about creating an enclave exclusively for the wealthy.
So I’ll harp on the idea that has been talked about in this valley for the decades I’ve been here. That is the idea of “smart growth.” Sitting at 9,000 feet in a beautiful mountain valley, I believe this spot will become more and more attractive to people as a changing climate changes the world.
As Bill and some people at last week’s town council meeting seem to feel, the best alternative is to oppose all new growth to preserve what we have. But that’s not an alternative. That’s a gate. And a gate, in our system of government and economics, rewards primarily the wealthy.
What are we to do under that alternative? Do we keep the school the same size even as more students enroll so that the facility deteriorates and becomes so overcrowded that it takes away from the quality of learning for the kids? Or do we curtail growth and turn it into a private school and limit the numbers to what they are today? Do we cap the recreation programs so some kids are left to fend for themselves? Do we not expand parking lots and hope the vehicles searching for the magic of a Lower Loop magically disappear? Do we keep leaving riders off the RTA buses so they run home and get in their cars and crowd the highway even more? None of that is real, creative or smart. Not providing parking, for instance, does nothing but make a bigger parking cluster. It doesn’t keep people from wanting to use the amenities. That “put up a gate and oppose future growth” template benefits those who can afford to pay the entrance fee for limited schooling, recreation programs and parking. Say goodbye to working families.
Look, while there are a lot of elements I liked about the place better when I first arrived in the 1980s than now, growth is not all bad. It has brought more good restaurants, more good coffee shops and more good entertainment options than were here back in the day. Heck there wasn’t a three-screen movie theater, grocery store, center for the arts, or middle school in town 20-some years ago. The pace was slower and the vacant lots more plentiful. The streets and backcountry were less crowded. But I’ve enjoyed a lot of the people who have come here since then and as I’ve stated before, this place is as much about the people as the scenery—which, if you haven’t noticed, is pretty darn good. Now, we actually might have to go an extra 300 feet in altitude to get away from more people, but it’s still pretty nice around here in a lot of ways.
As we once again have the “growth discussion” that every resort community must have on a regular basis, let’s try to be real and creative about it. Sticking our collective heads in the sand and hoping that ignoring parking will magically make wandering cars disappear is not smart growth. Telling politicians to just say no to any new development or idea is not smart growth. Managing the growth with an eye toward protecting our special attributes is.
The fact is, we’ve already taken some good steps to manage growth at this end of the valley. Affordable housing is a priority and has some significant land at the ready. Keeping working people and middle class families here retains part of our charm and keeps the community real. The open space initiatives have been more than successful and are obvious right out our front doors. The scale of the houses in the valley seems appropriate in the various locales. Continued support for the local students is evident in the CBCS accolades coming in from across the nation
So instead of tilting at windmills and trying to stop local growth that can actually benefit us all economically and in very real quality-of-life terms, let’s focus the discussion on more sincere and creative ways to manage the ramifications of growth. That doesn’t mean opening the floodgates, eliminating all regulation or selling the soul of the place for a few more bucks. But in the long run our kids, our community and we will benefit from an honest debate.

Pole, pedal, paddle from winter to summer

CB3P brings it all together in one surreal day

With the snowpack still intact, the roads clear, the rivers rising and off-season upon us, it’s time to bridge the gap between winter and summer in one day at the second annual CB3P (Crested Butte Pole, Pedal, Paddle) on Sunday, April 27. 

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Touching on our history…

“They were a tough and courageous people who soon became synonymous with the rugged environment in which they lived. The hours they worked were long, the work dangerous, and the reward minimal. But the people had an enthusiasm for life. The rousing foot-stomping polkas, the early day skiing, the outdoor barbecues, and the quaffing of prodigious amounts of cold beer testified to that.”
—A description of the people who first came to Crested Butte to live and work in the mines. From Crested Butte: A Town Named Desire by Dr. Duane Vandenbusche

This past weekend was one where if you put a trip to a beach on your credit card, it was a wise investment. Cold, blowy and snowy, it chased a lot of those people still in town to the desert. Like so many days during a Crested Butte spring, it was not an easy weekend.
Given that I am writing a little story on an historical Elk Avenue building for the upcoming issue of The Peak Magazine, the weather chased me to the Old Rock Library and then inside my house, where I went through some of the books detailing the history of this town and this valley. It was fascinating refresher course.
Walking around a sunny but chilly Crested Butte on Monday, it could have been a century ago in the quiet, sometimes struggling coal mining community. The air was certainly cleaner but the old storefronts and houses with their close-knit families came alive for me after reading the words of Vandenbusche, Sibley and Smith.

We are fortunate that history still plays a prominent and respected role here in Crested Butte. The town staff takes the history of the place seriously and that is a good thing. In many ways, historical Crested Butte has similarities to the present. We are lucky that working people and contributing families still live in this resort town and the nearby subdivisions. Not every Colorado resort can claim that. Those making a home here a century ago bonded with one another in the harsh environs of a high mountain village like many of those living here now. It is still the spirit of the people that makes the place what it is.
It’s never been an easy place to live. The Jokerville mine explosion in 1894 claimed the lives of 60 of the local miners. Even this week, word came that a couple of our modern sisters passed away too young in their lives: Dawne Freeman of natural causes, and Ellie Pryor in an avalanche. That is unfortunately not uncommon for people living here. Friends live on an edge with a zest for life and that comes with consequences. The weather, the economy, the free spirit, the end-of-the-road all attract a certain type of person. It isn’t for everyone.
Similar to today, not everyone got along here back in the day. Neighbors fought but in times of need, they would close ranks and help one another to the ends of the earth. Back in 1910, a major debate among people in town was the safety of the sidewalks and what to do about it. Sound familiar?

A noted female author of the late 1800s visited the valley and pointed out the turbulence of the mining economy in the valley. While one local drainage was named “Oh Be Joyful,” she noted, the next was tapped as “Poverty Gulch” for valid reasons. Helen Hunt Jackson also pointed out in the December 1883 issue of The Atlantic the beauty of the town’s natural surroundings. Over the years she postulated that fields of wildflowers might eventually bring in more money to the local economy than the veins of silver that men were searching for—and rarely found. Prophetic.
Crested Butte eventually found its economic footing as a coal-mining town. Grimier and less flashy than the gold and silver towns like Aspen and Telluride, Crested Butte today reflects that gritty humbleness. I like that. Our historical buildings don’t include opulent opera houses. Our buildings were constructed of wood instead of brick. That unfortunately led to the disaster of several major fires in Crested Butte’s history. In Sibley’s book, one of the volunteer firemen in Crested Butte’s past stated in humor and insight that might be found from today’s residents, “We never saved a building, but we always save the lot…”

While few if any families living here 100 years ago could leave for the spring to find the warmth of a beach or the desert, they would if they could and they would have a good time doing it. Then and now, the people living here welcomed the green of spring with smiles. In the 1900s they would celebrate spring by eating, drinking and dancing together—sort of like the gathering I saw over on Sopris at the end of the week.
Also from the Vandenbusche book: ”Working hard was one thing; playing hard was another. And no one could work or play harder than these rugged people from Crested Butte.”

Here’s to hoping everyone is enjoying the downtime of the off-season. We live in a good place (despite the sometimes annoying weather) and we are surrounded by good people, both in our past and in our present.

CB agrees to help fund Snodgrass open space property

Deal would protect the Mt. CB trailhead

The town of Crested Butte has committed $700,000—about 25 percent of the total—toward the purchase of part of the Promontory Ranch on Snodgrass Mountain, a parcel that includes the Mt. Crested Butte trailhead for the Snodgrass trail. The Crested Butte Land Trust and the property owner, the North Village Reserve, a subsidiary of Crested Butte Mountain Resort, are negotiating the deal. Read More »

Funding parks and recreation in Crested Butte: More sales tax?

Fully funding parks helps all the town departments

In a continuing effort to find a consistent revenue source for the Crested Butte Parks and Recreation Department, the Town Council discussed several options at their meeting Monday, March 3. At the end of the session, it appeared the council was leaning toward a combination of ideas, with a potential sales tax increase being the foundation. Read More »

Profile: Anthony Perez

The world of Anthony Perez revolves around being able to stay afloat amidst change—change in plans, change in direction, change in the weather, change in the wind. He’s sort of a self-made hybrid of a concierge and Mary Poppins.
Anthony grew up among the tall pines and thick woods of the Itasca State Park, where the Mississippi River comes off Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. “The headwaters of the Mississippi is just a tiny creek there,” Anthony says and he pulls out a photo of a few young kids walking knee-deep through a tranquil, small creek, maybe six feet wide with cattails along its banks, that many hundreds of miles downstream becomes the wide and mighty Mississippi. “I like to pull out that photo for people from Louisiana or Mississippi, especially New Orleans,” he laughs, “just to show them what the river looks like from up here.” Read More »