For most people in America, this week is a holiday. It is a time to continue holiday revelry and connect with friends and family until after the new year begins next Monday. Here in Crested Butte, it is one of the busiest work weeks of the winter. We all work really hard right now while trying to maintain connections with friends and family. It isn’t always easy, but it will pay off as we stockpile currency for the slower times. Still, moving toward a new year provides a benchmark to reflect, even if some of the reflection is what you should have said to the kid at table six when she asked for a fourth specialty side order along with separate checks for the party of 18.
In the busyness of a busy week, try to take a breath between shifts and remember why you chose to be here. Yeah, I know we were the hole in the donut during this last storm and that was rough, but it is still good for the soul to get out in the backcountry (be careful), on the Nordic tracks (it’s fast!) or on the Silver Queen (just jump into Monument!). Last year we were swimming in an “atmospheric river” while this year the desert sands swirl around us.

A longtime local back for the holidays expressed their optimism that Crested Butte is moving forward given the work being done on the old Brick and Forest Queen buildings. Over in Aspen, there are people buying buildings and letting them sit empty to just take the appreciation of a future sale. At least our “uberwealthies” want to provide business activity in their business properties along our prime business street, and fortunately they have the means to actually fix up properties like the Forest Queen that could easily have just crumbled into Coal Creek. That is something good to reflect upon.

A quick weekend trip to Park City a few weeks ago again reminded me how different it is here. It’s different there too but oh, so much bigger. The thought of Crested Butte even remotely trying to compete on the purely ski tourism metrics is beyond insane. The intermediate terrain on the CBMR hill is not what will ever get people to come here over going there. Our valley offers a ton of wonderful amenities, but an abundance of intermediate skiing is not one of them.
We are the small-town, friendly, artistic, challenging resort – and community. People drawn to live or visit here are of unique character. We’re a little more weird, a little more crusty, a little more open to it all. We seem to prefer the small and intimate over unlimited choice. We prefer deep over wide. That’s not to say we couldn’t use an upgrade here or there — heck, a simple base area lodge/cafeteria would be appreciated by everyone along with more fun, après ski energy at the base area — but we are what we are.

One of the most obvious physical differences here compared to most other mountain resort communities is the space. There is room to breathe and appreciate the splendor of nature. Let’s reflect that a huge part of that is due to the active ranching community in our valley. Giant swaths of land are home to cattle instead of condos. Driving up valley is a visual throwback to western Colorado valleys instead of Beverly Hills with mountain views. There are a few pockets of high mountain mansions but nothing like other places. The fact that the Allens, the Spanns, Trampes, Lacys, Veltris and other ranching families all have a love for the land and for the ranching business is extremely unique for a valley that also holds a ski area. That is a special blessing.
I have always tried to voice support for the local ranching community even over the recreation community — and Lord knows I am more comfortable riding a bike than herding cows — but I will fight for the ranchers to be able to continue in their business over the encroaching recreationists (like me). Without those working ranches here, the valley between Gunnison and Crested Butte could be filled with condos and McMansions and strip malls. Think about that, and even if you don’t eat beef, reflect on the value of having active ranches on our valley floor.

As we move into 2024, reflect on how special it still is here. It’s not what it was but it is what it is. Let’s not get tangled up in implementing a thousand new rules like they have in Breckenridge so that we don’t become the next Breckenridge. Appreciate that most of the time the people in this place try to work together for the best common solutions. It doesn’t always happen, and it doesn’t always work, but the effort is there 90% of the time. As a community, let’s focus on things that help and enhance the lives of the people living here. Make things easier for people living here in the valley, not harder. Take care of the locals and success will follow by attracting like-minded spirits that will visit to experience something unique not found in many places. Focus on keeping the population hubs places where the working people can live and enjoy a life (not just sleep between jobs) and that will separate us from most other mountain communities. Keeping our village vibrant and fun and filled with people active in their community will spread the good joy.

It is a busy week in the valley. It is a time to make bank so that those working here can survive the middle of January, most of April and all of May. It is a hectic time. But we are blessed. Reflect about what makes this place different and keep the spirit as we enter a new year.
Happy 2024 everyone.

—Mark Reaman

Not everyone likes to spread the word — the good or the bad word. Big institutions in particular like to keep their lips zipped thinking it’s the safest route and from their standpoint it might be. Lord knows my invisible friend Mark Walter isn’t shouting anything from the rooftop of the old Brick (hey, I thought that was going to be open by now!). This week CBMR and the USPS followed the tight-lipped template as well but others are happy to keep the people (us) all informed…

Word is a skier crossed to the other side near Paradise Bowl on Tuesday. But CBMR isn’t being very responsive about details, even though the story ends with good news as the skier was revived and crossed back to live again. Talking to witnesses it appears the skier fell in some small trees and probably ended up with a mouth and nose full of soft snow. Fellow skiers on the Paradise lift saw the situation, called patrol and quickly went to the scene where they found a purple skier with no pulse. Dead. They started CPR and ski patrol arrived a few minutes later and everyone continued to work on the guy who eventually took a deep breath. Word is the resort stopped the lift while this was all going on (fair) and eventually he was taken to the base area and transported by local EMTs to Gunnison Valley Hospital where he was treated overnight and is apparently doing fine. While the resort won’t spread the good word, we will, and give a hearty shout-out to the local heroes and professional ski patrollers and EMTs who literally, by all accounts, saved a life.

Word is that the Clark’s Market people say they are still on track for a December 18 grand re-opening. While a lot of local businesses, starting with Mountain Earth Organic Grocers, have stepped up to help fill the food gap in CB during the renovation, I’ll bet everyone, including the helping businesses, are really happy that Clark’s will be back with their doors opening in a few weeks. Sounds like it will be a tad higher end than it was a few months ago.

Meanwhile, we just got word that the Natural Grocers grand opening date for the Gunnison store is now scheduled for January 31. Word from the company is that “As always, this is tentative – you just never know with the entire construction and permitting process…” Fair enough.

Word is there are some local high-level people leaving their high profile jobs soon. The Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce will be selecting a new executive director as Scott Clarkson submitted his resignation this week. Andy Kadlec was hired as the executive director of the Gunnison Valley Regional Housing Authority in October of 2022. He too has decided to move on from the job so the board will be looking for a replacement pretty quickly. Based on a classified ad submitted this week and the nebulous answers I’m getting to my questions, it seems likely similar changes might be shaping up at other high profile non-profits in the valley. We’ll see.

Speaking of changes—word is local rum distiller Montanya’s has changed hands. Karen Hoskin has run the local favorite for 15 years and certainly blazed a trail in the worldwide industry as a woman from a small mountain town in the Rockies. According to a press release distributed this week, the new ownership group, consisting of current head distiller Megan Campbell, former head distiller and operations lead Renée Newton and Houston-based brand strategist Sean W. Richards, “plans to build on Montanya’s rock-solid foundation of exploration, sustainability, diversity and community engagement while continuing its production of award-winning rums with respect to its high-mountain legacy.” 

Word on the street is other local businesses owned by longtime locals are lining up transitions as well, which makes sense as people reach the age… 

Word is the local Adopt a Family holiday program is seeing a spike this year in families expressing a need. For whatever reason it appears a lot of folks are dealing with a tough time. If you can help a neighbor in need, email objadoptafamily@gmail.com.

Word is I had COVID – and I did, but to answer some online comments from the local Lauren Boeberts and MTGs, I did not get the latest vaccine and haven’t in a while as I don’t consider myself in the high-risk group. As expected, my bout just after Thanksgiving felt like a medium cold for a couple days. But I am friends with or in contact with some who are in the higher risk groups: older people, those dealing with cancer treatments or people dealing with kidney or liver disease. The CDC says older adults are at the highest risk of getting very sick from COVID-19 and a person’s risk of severe illness from COVID increases as the number of underlying medical conditions they have increases. Now we all know that the vaccines contain a microchip to track your whereabouts because Lord knows that the tracking system in your pocket that doubles as a phone/computer just isn’t reliable enough — but who isn’t good with that?!

So, while there are some who scoff at just the idea that COVID might lead to serious illness for anyone, I took the precautions I wrote about more to help people who do believe in the possibility of severe illness be more comfortable. Staying away from the lift line or wearing a mask in crowded places was a small price to pay to not make members of our community feel insecure. Reading a book on a comfortable couch to ease the minds of some neighbors is not a hardship…but that’s just me.

Word is the Gunnison-Crested Butte Airport is actually a place jets can rely on. Remember when if you booked a flight out of GUC you figured it was a 50-50 shot and when booking a flight time you factored in how long you had to drive to Montrose or Denver if things went south? New jets are making that calculation not needed. Apparently out of the last 100 flights scheduled into GUC, 99 have landed. Who woulda thunk?

Word is…well, there is actually no word on what might happen when the U.S. Post Office lease expires in February 2026 at its current Elk Avenue location.

The town had been trying to work with the USPS to provide a site by Gothic Field, but the USPS suddenly went cold on the idea and now there’s not much if any movement on an alternative location. I’ve emailed USPS contacts several times in the last month, including this week, and not received an answer. Town officials say they have not received any updates either. So, whoever opens an independent post office box store in the North Valley first might just make bank…Hmmm, combo library and Pack-n-Ship in CB South?

Word is…that while silence is sometimes golden, words are still used to communicate effectively in a small town. And we live in a small town….

—Mark Reaman

By Dawne Belloise

For a small town at the end of the road, we sure have a lot of drama, and now there’s even more in the way of thespianism to appreciate and enjoy. Firebird Theatre was born this past year of the love of acting, performance and theater education. This Saturday, December 9, downstairs at the Public House in CB, Firebird Theatre is hosting its 2024 Season Reveal Party to announce their shows for the upcoming year. 

“The party is a celebration of what we’ve done up to this point and a look forward to 2024,” Firebird artistic director David Flora says. The event is also serving as a fundraiser for the fledgling troupe. “It’ll be a fun, high energy, comedic performance that is equal parts informational and comedic. We take our work seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously. It will be a night of laughs and revelations, with formal wear encouraged,” David says of the show and adds that admission includes hors d’oeuvres. 

They are hoping to raise enough money to cover their soon-to-be announced 2024 season with 30% of their goal of $20,000 already raised. The evening will reveal three shows for younger casts and four mainstage shows. “We hope that this event will also attract anyone who is interested in trying out theater in any capacity,” he says.

The response to the new theater group has been an incredible and supportive reception since its founding in June of this year, David notes. The group formed primarily to bring more theatrical opportunities to the Gunnison Valley. The founding members are no strangers to the CB theatrical stage, including many local favorites: Genevieve Bachman, Annie (Rijks) Flora, David Flora, Paul Roggenbuck, David Russell, Tricia Seeberg, Emily Sharan, Jimmy Utley and Hannah Valian, with new staff members Tristan and Joanne Buss and William Spicer. David emphasizes, “This is a collective of folks who are running this theater, really great people with a lot of different skills and skill sets. Everybody is pitching in and it’s entirely volunteer based. All proceeds go directly to productions and that’s important to us.”

With their focus on high production quality, Firebird Theatre is determined to bring different productions in addition to typical theatrical offerings and they aren’t afraid to tackle larger productions either. This past September, the troupe performed Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, utilizing the outdoor stage at the historic train depot in Crested Butte. The show was free and drew large audiences for its run. “We did it for free because we want theater to be accessible to everybody,” David says, having observed that a lot of entertainment can be price prohibitive here.

“Right now, we’re doing a lot of kid’s productions. We had our first youth theater with a performance of Beauty and the Beast at the Majestic Theatre,” David says. This holiday season, the Firebird clan are producing The Nutcracker and the Mouse King with young director Maddy Carver, a local teen, at the helm and kids from 4th grade through high school freshmen involved. “We are working with Maddy every step of the way so that they can learn what it is like to put on a production. The seven teen/child actors who are performing in this comedic play (that is not anything like the ballet) are doing a great job.” This show opens on December 9 at 2 p.m. at the Majestic Theatre.  

David also claims that they are, “huge fans of panel shows, which is a comedy show that has four panelists and a host who challenges them to different games.” They’ll be running one of these shows on December 10 at the Parish Hall in CB. “This show will have puns, kazoos, word play and more. It is a show of dumb jokes and smart alecks.”

Some of the troupe’s longer-term goals are to provide more opportunities for local people to learn various aspects of theater, whether it’s production, stage management or the tech side, and David invites anyone who is interested to come and help out on a production and get hands-on experience. Next year, they’re hoping to have a little bit of everything to offer like acting classes, stand-up classes and sketch comedy writing. David is a veteran of diverse theater in Chicago, having worked with several of the major improv sketch comedy troupes like Second City, IO and ComedySportz. With their Chicago connections, Firebird Theatre can draw on a lot of people to help for their classes and events.

Their first improv show is December 15 at the Almont Resort and then December 16, 22 and 23 at the Parish Hall in CB. It’s called Humbug! An Improvised Christmas Carol and David tells, “It takes the Christmas classic that we all know and love and turns it on its head.”

Firebird Theatre is a 501(c)3 non-profit. They volunteered time to help P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization which supports women’s education) with a murder mystery scavenger hunt. They offered a free Stage Management Workshop that was taught by Jamie Wolfe, a professional stage manager at both Steppenwolf (a Chicago theater company) and The Goodman Theatre, also in Chicago. They also teamed up with the Center for the Arts to bring a shadowcast performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show to life. If you missed their performance of Twelfth Night, you can find it on YouTube. Firebird Theatre plans to offer memberships in the coming year and their newsletter is on their website.

As for the Reveal party, doors open Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and the show starts at 8 p.m. General admission is $35.

You can find Firebird Theatre online at www firebirdcb.com where you can buy tickets, get show and workshop schedules and general info as well as give a donation. They are on multiple social media like Facebook, Instagram at firebirdtheatrecb and on TikTok at firebirdtheatreco

First, congratulations to the Crested Butte Titans soccer team. Battling adversity and fighting an uphill battle in the playoffs, this team came out as the 2-A state champions in what was expected to be a “rebuilding year!” Okay then. In its post-season run, there was a double overtime victory, a shootout win on penalty kicks and a 1-0 win last Saturday. This is a young team and while we can look to the future with some confidence, take the time now to enjoy what was a magical run.

Speaking of magic…Driving home from Denver on Sunday after a quick trip to Minneapolis (it was warm there too), the highlight might have been a grazing herd of more than 100 elk in a field near the Dvorak rafting complex. Three dozen cars were pulled over on the side of 285 to watch them. It was a reminder that here in the valley we are exposed to that type of magic on a regular basis. The majestic bugling elk in the wetlands by the school or on the hillside by CB South is something to truly appreciate.

Then there’s the annual autumn cattle drive through town. That remains one of the best things that separates Crested Butte from its peers in the ski industry and took place last week. Watching the Allen cattle come through town dropping pies on the kids’ soccer field and ignoring the 25 mph signs is perhaps one of the highlights of every fall. It’s one of those things that parents and friends visiting Crested Butte remember forever if they are lucky enough to witness it. 

For me it is a tangible reminder of the depth and importance of ranching in this valley. It is an incredibly valuable asset that separates us from most of our peer resort communities. I truly believe that our active working ranches top the list of things that separate us as a resort community and we need to do what we can to help them maintain that business, the lifestyle and culture. Embrace the cow pies on the hiking trails, accept the perceived favoritism of the Forest Service toward the ranchers over recreationists on public lands, appreciate the control longtime ranching families have over big swaths of land along the highways. Without that stewardship, and more importantly, their control over the water rights in the area, we could easily look like a poor man’s valley near Keystone with condos on brown hillsides instead of cattle on verdant fields. Don’t take that for granted.

Another thing not to take for granted is how we are surrounded by millions of acres of wilderness and forests at the end of the road while having the amenities of a resort community. So, the current draft of the regional GMUG Forest Plan is a bit baffling as the powers that be seem to see the forest more as an extractive opportunity for logging than a golden asset unto itself. I understand the need and the logic for some logging and mining, but the draw of nature is powerful in both a spiritual and economic sense and it is one of the primary amenities in our amenity-based community.

Being fortunate enough to talk to U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and county commissioner Jonathan Houck on a joint call about a month ago, they obviously get it. Both have been longtime passionate participants in the Gunnison Public Land Initiative (GPLI). Bennet literally spent years working on the project and crafted it into draft legislation called the Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act. They had expected that recommendations from the GPLI would be a core part of the proposed forest plan. Alas, that wasn’t the case, which is a travesty. When you have a grassroots initiative that brings together diverse interests of a community that reach practical compromises, there is little reason not to embrace that opportunity in an increasingly polarized world. The fact that the Forest Service has ignored it is one more thing that makes people believe the bureaucrats have no sense of what the people want and instead impose their views because they know what’s best. Wrong.

The proposed draft plan actually goes against the grain of what it is that makes this place special. So, I appreciate the elected officials at both the local and the federal level, in this case Houck and Bennet, in advocating and understanding what is part of our uniqueness. We are fortunate to have elected representatives like Senator Bennet and commissioner Houck that put in the time and hard work to understand what it is we are about and try to turn that understanding into practical, on the ground direction. Bennet and Houck are continuing to do the good work and for that we should be grateful. The Forest Service, on the other hand, should reevaluate its draft plan to more clearly reflect the priorities of the community.

The recent CB town council discussion over the direction of its climate mitigation measures was interesting. I appreciated the viewpoint that if you are dealing with an emergency and going to focus on a goal, then focus on a goal. I am afraid too many people living up here at 9,000 feet in a resort valley that depends on jets, and cars, and trucking in everything, and using energy to suck water from the rivers to make snow, believe they can save the world by making everyone ride a bus. There is moral and practical value in doing what you can to chip away at the climate problem but be careful on how far you go to make people do what you think is right unless you are walking the straight walk. The council discussion touched on those issues and while no definitive conclusion was reached, I appreciated the back-and-forth about being real.

Mitch Hoffman’s wife Carolyn sent a note reminding us that November 19 is World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Cheers to her and to the memory of a good man lost in a still horrible situation for all involved. And while it may not be directly related, we should all remember to pay attention to the road while in a vehicle and not look at a text that came in while driving.  

Congratulations to Jeff Hermanson and Kyleena Falzone for getting the old Last Steep open this coming weekend. It is great to see tangible progress in our lacking Elk Ave restaurant scene and I know people are looking forward to experiencing The Hideout that they have worked so hard on the last year. 

Meanwhile, someone mentioned to me recently that I was being too hard on Mark Walter, the billionaire owner of several other Elk Avenue business locations. I don’t think I’ve mentioned him in months, which made me think perhaps he lost my phone number. 

While I believe mutual acquaintances that say he’s a good guy, and I do appreciate that he is saving iconic CB buildings like the Forest Queen, I also think it would be beneficial to everyone in this small-town community to understand what he’s trying to do over the long term. So, as a reminder, if he feels the desire as a major player in Crested Butte to share his goals with the community, we at the News are all ears and offer a conduit to the community in general. My phone number is 970–349–0500, extension 109. And I know many of “his people” have my cell phone and email if that is more convenient. 

When the CB planning department makes plans to push for reroutes of the Mountain Express bus system based on a statistic that says most people in the country won’t ride a bus unless it’s within 500 feet of their door, they seem to be missing a foundational point that people in Crested Butte think differently. People here don’t feel old. They understand walking is part of the transportation system. I ride the bus in the winter regularly with people both young and old who grab the bus and live blocks from a bus stop. Applying those kinds of textbook standards to shape decisions on Crested Butte, seems a form of gentrification — something we all say we don’t want. 

We are closer than we think to the start of the next on-season. In fact it begins this coming Wednesday. It may feel like spring, but winter is looming. Enjoy the remaining few days of a quiet, community-centric off-season. The slower pace, the empty streets, the opportunity to reconnect with friends and neighbors while not hurrying off to another job is fleeting. But it is here now and so we should all embrace it. Believe it or not, the lifts start spinning in less than a week and there will indeed be natural and manmade snow on which to slide… and that too is a good thing in a different way. 

—Mark Reaman

“Do you know who I am?!” 

So asked our congressional representative when she was booted from a Denver theatre for inappropriate behavior last week. Yes Lauren, we do. You appear a horny vaper seeking attention at any cost who seems to have little interest in the seriousness of your job but bathes in entitlement while showering division throughout our congressional district that includes this valley.

A more thoughtful question might be, “Do I know who I am?” That might be a bit too introspective for Ms. Boebert who, until she realized her obnoxiously entitled behavior was caught on camera, simply lied about her actions.

Do I know who I am? For me personally this past week, I was a guy who went to a lot of meetings and events. All those gatherings could be seen as centered on asking the community question — Do we know who we are — or who we want to be?

As the seasons change, fall is perhaps a good time to reflect on who you are individually—or who we are as a community. The days cool down and become shorter. The pace of life slows down. The opportunity to be in nature before the snow flies is paramount. It is a good time to breathe and reflect.

Local people are working to determine who “we” want to be with the proposed Whetstone workforce housing project. Initial discussions at two citizen meetings last week indicated we want to be a community that provides security for the people who have chosen this place to live and work. We want to be a community that honors not just the ability to have a roof and bed close to a job but also honors the desire to participate in the outdoor lifestyle. We want to be a place that provides a potential path for an individual to arrive as a ski bum and then transition to having a family and eventually become a community elder. Details (and of course costs) are what the current meetings are focused on. Good stuff.

The Crested Butte Transportation and Mobility Plan generated a long council discussion last week. There’s no shortage of trying to determine who we want to be in that evolving draft plan. Overall, it currently reads to me that the town wants to use more rules and regulations to push CB toward a place where a car is not convenient but there are alternatives to vehicles. The plan wants to regulate more things so that hopefully people here connect more with one another. Sounds ideal, aside from the increase in regulations.

If not careful, the plan could go off the rails (if only we had rails!) and turn us into another Breckenridge experience that is harder to get to. It’s easy to fall for big city solutions to our small-town issues. Of the six “success measures” evaluated in the latest document, four were noted that “keeping our rough edges and polish only when necessary” as neither accomplishing nor not accomplishing that goal but labelled as “it depends.” Red flag alert! To me, just the phrasing, “keeping our rough edges and polish only when necessary” seems tritely polished in a calculated way. Crested Butte funkiness is organic, and I doubt planning for funkiness results in funky.

Using that “rough edges” metric to make decisions is a change from what the community used in the past to determine future direction. The guiding questions used to be, “will this work for us?” or “does this action make the town/valley good for the people living here now?” If so, we’d move forward, the community members benefitted, and we attracted kindred spirit tourists that liked what we liked. Of all the success measures and guiding metrics in this plan, doing “what is best for the people living here now” should perhaps be 1A.

Frankly, adding more regulations to a community of people that came here in part to get away from regulations should be done judiciously. They are sometimes necessary but how does adding stricter regulations over alleys, prohibiting snowmelt to keep sidewalks free of ice in the winter, expanding rules for parking permits, eliminating parking spaces at Third and Elk, make our lives better? Start there. I have opinions on all those issues, and I know others do too. But whether it is this plan or the budget or housing workers, I would suggest the town leaders consider shifting from asking “how do we keep our rough edges” to asking how a decision will “benefit the people here now.” Of course, the priority would be the residents of town followed by the rest of us in the North Valley and beyond.

While in reflective mode, let’s understand it’s not all rainbows and unicorns here and we can’t ignore the hard questions. I attended the Project Hope luncheon last week. An impressive event centered on supporting local women (and men) dealing with domestic violence, sexual assault and other tragic situations, Project Hope is a normally under-the-radar organization doing the good work in a dark place. With help from the local health community, law enforcement and other citizens, Project Hope is stepping up to help those who need it in the most desperate of times. Can women experience tragedy here in the postcard of a resort community? Unfortunately, the answer is yes and thank goodness there is a dedicated group of people ready with resources to help those struggling with the unthinkable.

Watching the RTA board having to discuss how to ensure that public buses are safe for the entire public is another chink in the blue sky of our postcard community. 

Should it even be a question that people can expect to ride a bus and not feel emotionally threatened? Yes, but that’s not always the case. The RTA board is working to figure out how to make that happen. Policy discussions over what a driver can “broadcast” on the bus are taking place, as is the 2023 discussion over what pronouns to use in their documents. 

Do you know who I am? Do we know who we are? Where do we want to go? How will this help my neighbors? The question used to consider our future should focus on what makes this place better for the people living here now — and not the future lift op who is still in high school in Arkansas or the frat boy in Boulder looking to experience a bonfire on mushrooms. 

I for one appreciate how Vinotokians asked the hard questions and seriously changed in part what the festival is these days. Embracing and expanding the more public family-oriented and introspective elements is inspiring. The autumn equinox officially arrives this Saturday at 12:50 a.m. Take a tour of the various Vinotok altars that are sprinkled around CB before then and think about who you are. Think about who “we” want to be.

Like the seasons, we as people and a community are always changing. I like that this place changes in some respects and have played a part in making some previous changes (even through new regulation). Change is going to happen, but there is nothing wrong with checking in this time of year to ponder the right questions to guide the right change. 

—Mark Reaman

The aspen leaves are turning more golden by the day, which means it’s time for the 13th annual Crested Butte Film Festival. This year the festival will run from Wednesday, September 27 through Sunday, October 1, showing an eclectic array of films varying in style, length and topics from all over the world. The CB Film Fest aims to inspire creativity, cultural awareness and social action—and this year, there is a strong connection to local Crested Butte culture in several ways. 

One program within the festival is a series of films representing something dear to the hearts of many Buttians—mountain biking. Some of the biking narratives are based in Crested Butte, such as the stories found in Born from Junk: Trailblazers, while In the Dirt takes place on a Navajo Reservation in the southwestern United States and Café Americano is set among the Dolomites in Italy. The biking program shows films on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with all three screened back-to-back on Friday, September 29.

The festival also includes a “local films showcase” with numerous short and full-length films from filmmakers who are based in or are from the Gunnison Valley. This collection will air on Wednesday with a variety of genres and stories to tell and will also honor the late Mark Reeb with two films in which he starred. 

Mountain Biking Program: Italy, CB and the Navajo Nation

This year’s programming includes three films about mountain biking, with themes varying from light comedy to the profound, from the power of riding to heal multi-generational trauma, to the pioneering spirit of early trail bikers and the satisfaction of pursuing one’s dreams.

“It’s an opportunity to put three films together that will appeal to the outdoor enthusiast audience on Friday night,” says film festival co-founder Michael Brody. He hopes film goers will be inspired to stick around for some other films as well. 

First, Mike Horn (a CB local) and Galin Foley return to the film fest with Born from Junk II: Trailblazers, a second installment of their Born from Junk documentary series to celebrate the outlaw roots of mountain biking in the west and particularly in the Gunnison Valley. The latest film is a short feature about CB royalty, like Don Cooke and Kay Peterson Cooke, as they developed what has become a world-class trail system today, and biking all-stars such as Dave Wiens and Susan DeMattei who helped forge the way for competitive mountain bike racing. Horn and Foley incorporate some archival video footage to illustrate the early days of bike racing in the Gunnison Valley on the big screen, and the Crested Butte Mountain Resort base area of the early 1990s is almost unrecognizable compared to the area today. 

“We had the world to ourselves,” says DeMattei of the premillennial decades and vast bikeable wilderness. 

This film shows on Wednesday, September 27 at 5 p.m., and Friday, September 29, at 7 p.m.

Next, the festival will host the world premiere of In the Dirt, a mid-length documentary following a group of Native Americans who are passionate about mountain biking the thousands of miles of dirt and slickrock within their Navajo reservation, and the healing power it has on riders as it promotes joy and provides a way to see and connect with their land. 

Former pro cycler Scott Nydam has joined forces with some of the riders to form a nonprofit that helps build trails, provides bikes and gear, creates mentoring programs and provides much needed repair and tuning skills and services. 

The film’s premiere will be attended by many of those involved in the film from the Navajo Nation. The Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association (CBMBA) will be hosting the group for a series of rides on Saturday after the film premieres on Friday, September 29 at 7 p.m.

Brody says he expects as many as 30–40 visitors from the Navajo Nation to attend this year’s festival for the film’s premiere. “I think it’s been kind of a wild experience for them,” he says.

CBMBA executive director Dave Ochs says CBMBA first heard about In the Dirt from a board member/film enthusiast, and the nonprofit quickly got in touch with the group. 

“I’ve personally been driving through the Navajo Nation for the last 23 years, and to be honest, I’ve been enthralled by native culture and thinking of how great that riding looked,” says Ochs. He describes a memorable 21-day bike tour that included large stretches through Navajo lands in Arizona in 2001.

Ochs says CBMBA members are looking forward to viewing the film, showing the visitors some classic CB rides the next day and learning more about their overall experience. 

“I’m excited to see some energy and momentum around the film, and I hope it can be a benefit to the Navajo Nation. I think we have a lot to learn from them, and I‘m excited to hear and see things from their perspective,” he says.

Last, Café Americano, directed by Ben Page, Joey Schusler and Thomas Woodson, is what Brody describes as a soft comedy short film. Featuring real life mountain biking legend Shawn Neer who embarks on a trip across Italy in search of great coffee, great mountain bike trails and a special place his father told him about as a child, the playful narrative and iconic scenery is a refreshing short film. “This story is almost like a documentary, but it has a twist to it, and it’s kind of scripted—it’s more of a story,” describes Brody. 

Café Americano will play on Friday and Saturday, September 29 and 30, at 7 p.m.

Local films showcase

Beyond the biking program, the film fest has a locals showcase for the second year in a row, which will take place on Wednesday evening, September 27 at 5 p.m.  

“We’ve really seen the film scene in CB change,” says Brody. “There are so many filmmakers participating. There’s this film thing happening in town, so we want to acknowledge that.”

The local showcase includes two films from the recently passed Mark Reeb, one from Western Colorado University students, and two from Benjamin Swift who grew up in CB. 

“I think, what a good way to start the festival by saying there are people making films right here,” says Brody. “And the rest of the festival is more like we’re bringing things to CB, with films from Ukraine and one from the Reunion Islands in the Pacific, that highlight the human condition and hopefully shows us pieces of ourselves. I think that’s something special that the film fest has in the valley,” explains Brody. 

“The festival serves the community in a whole lot of ways. At home, streaming and through cable we can watch a lot of stuff. But this collection is so curated, and these are probably films people would never see otherwise. So we are expanding people’s choices, showing what we love and what turns us on so that others can be inspired and see a larger body of work out there than what we see in the Gunnison Valley.”

Brody says that the festival this year has more visiting filmmakers than in the past. “People and particularly filmmakers are wanting to get out again,” he observes. 

Brody says he thinks the CB Film Fest has an added appeal for this time of year as it comes after the prestigious summer film fests of Cannes, Venice, Telluride and Toronto and well before the next, the Sundance festival in January. 

“Filmmakers are wanting to show their films to a live audience and see their reaction. They also want to see where we live here in Crested Butte and have that experience. I think they are really interested in coming here and seeing what it’s all about. The culture we have of riding bikes—some people haven’t ridden bikes in 10 years and have a lot of fun with it. I think we offer something unique here,” Brody explains.

Brody says the film fest always tries to combine films with a sense of place, including screenings that address mental health struggles such as My Sister Liv. 

 “From female sexuality to a robot, our spectrum of subjects shows the complexity of the film medium, the world and ourselves. We want to build interest and excitement. People have a lot of fun here.” 

It certainly doesn’t hurt to add changing leaves, majestic scenery and this fleeting autumn weather. 

Heaven Forbid…A quick trip to Vail to watch Crested Butte local John Norton get inducted into the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame was, believe it or not, too quick. I was actually liking my time in the big city and would have enjoyed another day in what could have been a Disney Euro ride.

First Norton…congrats to a guy who was recognized by his peers for having a significant influence on the entire Colorado ski industry. His unique, sometimes crazy, ideas matched the lifestyle that comes with skiing…he focused on fun and getting people into the mountains to enjoy what the mountains offer. Norton is a marketer, and his idea of a successful ski area might be different than mine, but his heart and mind are wrapped in these mountains and his home is here. Originally drawn to the mountains by fishing, he grew to love skiing and all things mountain and like it or not, helped make this place what it is. Frankly, without some of his effort, who knows if there would still even be an active ski area in the valley today or not. There was a time that CB was on the same financial path as a Cuchara, but thank goodness he was able to help steer us off that road.

Norton comes of course with the legendary stories such as lighting his Hot Finger gloves on fire in front of a ballroom of ski influencers with “Do Not Try This at Home” scrawled on his chest. When other ski areas were expanding terrain and installing high speed quads, he caught the attention of the ski press by touting the new cheese slicer purchased for the Paradise Warming house because that was about the biggest capital improvement the resort was able to afford that year. 

One of his most famous ad campaigns for CB was built around the taglines, “Heaven Forbid we should ever be like Aspen or Vail” or “This is not Vail.” Former CBMR ski president Edward Callaway told the story of how, with the already crazy idea of offering free lift tickets in CB (because people will pay a lot of money to get something for free!), Norton pushed to hire a plane that would drop tens of thousands of free lift tickets over Mile High stadium during a Monday Night Broncos football game. “Let’s drop enough to stop the game and get the national broadcasters talking about it,” he suggested to Callaway and Ralph Walton, who headed up the resort at the time. While intrigued, they consulted the company lawyer and were told that not only would Norton probably end up in jail, but Callaway and Walton likely would as well. That idea was nixed. But it showed where Norton’s marketing mind was not afraid to wander.

Norton helped put Crested Butte on the ski map. We wouldn’t be fretting about a “restaurant disaster emergency” today if the lifts were shuttered, so don’t think it was always face shots and sunshine. And if you like those T-bars that get you to the Headwall or Staircase, thank Norton for seeing the immense value in that terrain and the return on investment to get there on cheap ground lifts. 

As I have said many times, it is a privilege and joy to live in a ski town. Colorado towns without the amenities that come with a resort, like Pitkin or Cuchara, are probably cheaper than CB. Our amenities, along with our location, keep Crested Butte small but interesting. Having been to both Park City and Vail in the last couple months, we are nowhere near that level‚ thank goodness. But Crested Butte is more attractive, exciting and fun in part because of Norton. For that I am grateful. We remain a real small town in the big mountains. Congrats to him that his peers in the ski world recognized his contributions to a business that anyone living in this valley ultimately depends on.

Now Vail…20 hours in Vail actually didn’t feel like enough. Heaven forbid! Founded about the same time as CBMR in the early 1960s, Vail went on to become the commercial success some in CB salivate about. Despite the changes we are seeing in this valley, CB is not even close and still has more rough soul than its big sister that straddles I-70.

Arriving Sunday afternoon and leaving Monday morning was too fast. The place has a Bavarian patina that comes from a focus on the manicured, with perfect flowers on the balconies and open pedestrian spaces leading past not a single vacant business space. Cool outside art and water features are everywhere. Like here, it was not crowded. There was space to walk, and the flow worked great with free buses helping get people around the sprawling greater Vail area. The roundabouts worked. It was quite pleasant.

I didn’t see what looked like many locals in the main core. There were a lot of foreign languages spoken and people like me that were tourists but in nicer shirts. The path along Gore Creek was fantastic, the gardens and parks beautiful. There was activity going on after 8 p.m. The guy at the front desk said he paid $2,200 a month for a studio apartment outside of Vail proper and he’d been in the area 18 years. 

But I didn’t see a lot of people on bikes, moms walking their kids to school or big dogs wandering around. The trash cans were brown, and the buses could have come off the 16^th Street Mall. The Austrian motif set the Euro tone. A beer and a cocktail at the bar topped $30 with tip. Lodging was located over retail, office and restaurant spaces everywhere. The buildings were big (for us) but did have the feel of the Alps and looked great in a perfect picture sort of way.

While I couldn’t live there, it was a nice place to visit, and I actually left wanting more time there.

Coming back to CB reinforced the differences and the comfort of a small, real, western town. The comparisons were evident between the shiny perfections of a Vail and the rough, literally gravelly edges of a small former mining town. A big part of that has to be that so many people still live in and near Crested Butte. While declining, about 64% of the houses in CB are filled year round. In Vail proper, that number is flipped with less than 30% being occupied by full-timers.

The energy that comes with people living near where they work and play makes a big difference. In Vail, we drank our morning coffee on an AstroTurf open space as two little towheaded boys from California kicked a ball. There were cleaners everywhere and everything was spotless, but I didn’t see everyday living activity. Maybe I didn’t recognize it like I would here but more likely it was happening 10 or 20 miles away in Minturn, Avon or Leadville. 

In CB we returned to see the school playground at the entrance to town full of local kids. Construction workers were grabbing a screw or a hot dog at the hardware store. On Elk Ave. a little girl was walking her dog that was bigger than her. People riding townies were on every street. Three dudes that seemed to be taking a break from the new skatepark were lounging together on a bench at Third and Elk. People were picking up their mail and I recognized locals chatting outside the coffee shops. While I didn’t see it in the tourist zones of Vail, I am sure these mundane local activities take place somewhere in the Vail Valley where the real people live — but in Crested Butte real life still takes place in Crested Butte. That is special in a resort community.

Over his decades-long career in the ski business, Norton probably banged on Vail more than anyone. Now he has a display at the Colorado Snowsports Museum located in the heart of the Vail. He has always maintained that CB could never turn into a Vail given where we are located and the limited ski terrain we have. Despite CBMR now being owned by Vail Resorts he appears to be right. I honestly understand the appeal of Vail to the masses but as John once made clear in an ad campaign for Crested Butte — “This is not Vail.” 

Let’s keep it that way.

—Mark Reaman

by Dawne Belloise

Jeremy Johndrow figured out his life’s calling when he started guiding, which led him to start his jeep touring business, JJ’s Jeeps. He recalls his struggles after college to find his path in the world. He even tried moving to the city a couple of times and wound up in Denver doing construction for half a year and then Nashville where he only lasted three months before realizing, “I’m not a city person. I’m a mountain guy. I learned enough about the real world that I didn’t want any part of it.” So he moved to Crested Butte and started doing what his passion dictated with the hope of spreading the passion of the outdoors to others. And he is doing it through his business of providing jeep tours to people who might not otherwise truly experience the real Colorado outdoors. That, he hopes, will make those people passionate about the environment and the specialness of the backcountry.

This year’s touring season is still ongoing, he tells, and fall is one of his busiest seasons. This summer saw large numbers of tourists in town and Jeremy says, “People wanted to see wildflowers and we teamed up with the Wildflower Festival this year for tours. It was their first time offering jeep tours since 2017 and it was wildly popular. We sold out all the tour events.” He also teamed up with geologist Dr. Amy Ellwein to offer geology tours and says, “People loved it, and it was quite popular.”

And best of all, Jeremy feels he’s not only getting paid to do what he loves but, “There’s no better way to inspire someone to protect nature than to take them out in it to experience the splendor first-hand.” Jeremy considers himself a steward of the land and an environmentalist. “I care deeply about the health of nature, but it is also critical that we preserve our precious public lands, because that is why people visit the Gunnison valley and our economy depends on people doing so. Many would consider it hypocritical since I drive around a 4×4, burning fossil fuels all day in the mountains. While I certainly won’t look you in the eye and tell you it’s good for the environment, it’s not as bad as one would think and definitely has the least amount of negative impact of all the motorized activities one can do in the mountains. Street-legal vehicles have stricter emissions standards than OHVs, plus my Jeeps are virtually silent and travel much slower down the trails than dirt bikes or ATVs, causing less erosion. While I do my best to reduce JJ’s Jeeps’ impact on the environment, the most important thing we do is act as a platform for educating people. My clients learn about a variety of issues, both local and global.”

Jeremy grew up in Lebanon, New Hampshire on a beautiful, small horse farm with his mom. It’s where his love for nature and the outdoors blossomed, “We had 25 acres and apple orchards that backed up to a nature preserve with trails, so I grew up tromping around the woods. It was an enormous backyard for a kid,” but trails and bikes connected him with neighborhood friends. “That’s how I got into mountain biking.”

He started skiing when he was three years old on small, local slopes. “There was a poma lift to the three runs and it was about two miles from my house,” he says of the town-owned area that had snowmaking and night skiing. “It was affordable at $3 for night skiing and $6 for the entire day. I still ski and it’s literally why I moved to CB.”

In high school, Jeremy was very active in sports. “I was a nerdy jock,” he confesses. “I played football, Nordic ski raced, and did track and field in the spring.” He graduated in 2004 and was determined to move west and be a ski bum, having been inspired by a Warren Miller film in his youth. 

He looked into various liberal arts colleges in small towns, and discovered Western Colorado University (WCU) as a competitive Nordic skier. “I literally Googled it in 2002 and by the time I made it out here I was more into riding chairlifts and drinking beer than I was Nordic racing,” he laughs. Jeremy decided to take a gap year first and was hired as a liftie at Alta ski resort in Utah. It was his first time living and skiing out west and that year dumped 700 inches of glorious white snow.

Traveling back home to New Hampshire that spring, he came through Gunnison, which didn’t impress him much with its low sage covered hills. “But then I drove to Crested Butte and was absolutely awestruck. I thought, if this is 40 minutes down the road from Gunnison, I can go to WCU.” He arrived at the WCU dorms in August of 2005. The wilderness-based orientation, a 5-day backpacking trip before school started, took him up Cement Creek and Hunter Hill. “It was an awesome experience, and I met a great bunch of friends right off the bat who I’m still friends with to this day. I immediately fell in love with this valley. I felt this is the place.” Jeremy double majored in business and outdoor recreation with an emphasis in ski resort management and a minor in environmental science and graduated in 2010. 

 Throughout college, Jeremy worked at the popular Gunnison restaurant, The Trough, a job set up for him by a New Hampshire friend who had also attended WCU. He tells that there weren’t a lot of ski area management jobs available when he graduated because of the 2008 recession, so he went into property management and, eventually, construction. In 2013, he started his own handyman business called JJ’s Property Maintenance and Construction. For six winters starting in 2011, he also led snowmobile tours up Kebler Pass. ”I realized I was actually a good guide,” he says.

Jeremy had been introduced to four-wheeling in college, exploring all the vast public lands with his friends. “I bought my first jeep in June 2006, right after my freshman year. It was a great way to get out and explore and find out where all these roads go.” After chatting with the U.S. Forest Service he determined that local jeep guiding would be a good business. At the end of 2019, Jeremy did an incubator program with ICE LAB at WCU (a boot camp for entrepreneurs starting up new businesses), attended first aid and CPR classes and applied for his guiding permit in February of 2020. “There’s a lot to the application and quite a bit of paperwork involved. It’s not easy.”

And then COVID hit one month later. The Forest Service reached out to ask if he wanted to push the application until next year. “But I wanted to get started as soon as possible.” Jeremy got a temporary permit, which is required for the first few years before you can apply for the 10-year priority permit. “I wanted to get that going ASAP and figured COVID would only last through the summer. Well, that wasn’t the case… Even though CB was busy by the following Memorial Day and the public lands were busy because it’s what people could do at distance, not a lot of people wanted to ride in a jeep,” he recalls. He did take about two dozen people out that first season. While he didn’t make any money, Jeremy felt it was good practice to figure out his routes and timing. The business has grown consistently since then. By 2022, he reached the cap of permitted people at 200. This spring, he was granted the 10-year priority permit. Jeremy currently employs three guides.

In the fall, when the leaf peepers come to town to view the spectacular golden display, Jeremy’s business booms. “It’s a beautiful time to visit CB because it’s less crowded and the weather is really nice. I take people where the foliage is best and cater the tours to each client’s request. Some have certain sites they want to see, some want to get extreme and some don’t,” he says. However, he emphasizes, “I avoid Kebler during foliage season because anyone can go there in a car. I will escape the crowds and go to places that cars can’t go for the beautiful foliage. The places to go for the best foliage change every day with the climate due to elevation. Up high, the leaves are going  to change first and that determines when the leaves are peaking.”

Jeremy loves the sense of community he finds in Crested Butte and the access to the outdoors. “I get to share my passion for this valley. I love history, I love geology and I love jeeps. I’ve been a gearhead since I was a little kid and I’m a good mechanic. I’ve been wrenching on cars since I could drive them and when you’re driving mountain roads things can definitely break.” 

Jeremy’s tours are an opportunity for him to educate people on a variety of issues that are important to him, from climate change to beetle kill to the importance of the sage grouse, wolf reintroduction and even the local housing issues.

“When my clients see the mountains up close and personal, they fall in love with them and it’s easier to get them to care about the environment. Older, or less physically-able people can’t hike, bike or climb mountains and it’s a great way for them to get out and experience the backcountry again and see the beautiful sights of nature. The majority of my clients are older people who have the time and want to get out and do things, but their bodies aren’t what they were. I’m doing what I love and where I love and you’re showing people these sights and they’re just awestruck. It’s a nice reminder of how lucky we are to live in this beautiful place.”

For more info, visit his website at jjsjeeps.com 

By Dawne Belloise

Bowie Lipowitz grew up in the Albany, New York area with a love of animals and reading. In high school, she volunteered for the Capital District Humane Association rescuing animals and busting puppy mills. It’s also why she’s now the head veterinary tech at the Animal Hospital of Crested Butte, a job she’s had and loved since 2020.

With her broad smile and vibrant hair the color of a Colorado bluebird summer sky, Bowie laughs that she was one of the “little ski brats” who schussed around Hunter Mountain in New York with her ski instructor dad. “I was on skis by the time I was 2 years old.” Bowie’s dad also taught her how to tune her own skis. Although she lived primarily with her mom, who moved around the area frequently for work, Bowie spent much time with her father. In the summers, she’d follow her dad around the golf course where he was a golf instructor, “So I learned how to play and would hang out on the putting and driving ranges. He got me involved in the Junior PGA and I played in tournaments. He made my clubs and I’d help him make clubs.”

From the ages of 14 through 22, Bowie worked full-time at a marina doing pretty much everything. “I docked boats, ran the ship store, stained docks, hauled boats and drove the travel lift a bit.” She also lived at the marina on her dad’s and stepmom’s 36-foot sailboat named “Selkie,” docked on Rondout Creek just off the Hudson River in Kingston, New York. In high school, Bowie was into theater and music, played the sax in both the jazz and concert bands and figured she wanted to live and work on Broadway in New York City. She graduated from high school in 2005.

She chose Hofstra University for college, mostly because they had a good theater department and a replica of the Shakespeare Globe Theatre. She wanted to focus on production, but that winter she began as a weekend ski instructor at Hunter Mountain. Hofstra was a four-hour drive to the mountain and as she puts it, “Not a fun drive in the winter.” Plus, she then understood, “The mentality differences of the people, city versus mountain life, made me realize I was not a city girl but actually a mountain girl.” Although she wasn’t sure of what she wanted to do, Bowie left school in 2005  to be a full-time ski instructor. After two years, she became a ski instructor at Belleayre Mountain, also in upstate New York.

Because she loved skiing so much, her stepmother suggested that Bowie get a degree in it. Thinking that was an excellent idea, Bowie enrolled in State University of New York (SUNY) at Delhi in its Adventure Recreation program, an associate degree in applied science that encompassed hiking and backpacking, kayaking and whitewater rafting, snowshoeing and cross country skiing, plus the general courses and managerial aspects. For one of her finals, Bowie took her professor to Belleayre and taught him how to ski. She graduated in 2008.

She was teaching at Belleayre during the season of 2010-11 when she met Nate Meckes, an instructor who had taught snowboarding in Crested Butte. When the Belleayre’s budget cuts ensnared the staff of ski instructors, Nate got Bowie hired at Crested Butte Mountain Resort. They packed the car, drove west and two days later she was teaching skiing over spring break in CB. “It’s the ski bum life,” she laughs. Bowie had never been to Colorado but as a kid had always dreamed of moving out west. “It was the TV show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman where the opening scene for the show was running horses in an open field and mountains.” She says that the nature and the freedom and the peacefulness called to her. “It made me think of Colorado as this dream. I left on a Thursday, drove straight through and arrived Friday night at 5 p.m. in March. Nate pointed out CB mountain as we were coming up the valley and of course, you see the backside and I thought how the hell do you ski that?” 

On her first day teaching, Bowie was given the Explorers to deal with, the 4- to 6-year-olds and she recalls, “It was a long day. No one told me the layout of the day, that there was a morning break, so I pushed the kids on the Magic Carpet until lunch and they were exhausted. I had to carry some of them inside. I was exhausted,” she laughs. “You have them all day, you bring them lunch, then it’s back on the hill until 3:30.” With no plans for when the lifts closed that first season, her friend Gail Barto told her about a summer job at Rocky Mountain Trees. “I got hired on there and never left Crested Butte.”

 The next winter Bowie was hired back to teach at CBMR, where she worked until the winter season of 2017-18 but by then, she says, “I was burnt out. The Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) training just sucked all the fun out of it.” She was working on her level 3, passing the movement analysis, the written exam and two out of the three parts of the practical skiing. “The one I didn’t pass was applied skiing. I was broken up over it and couldn’t even have fun skiing anymore. I decided to not teach anymore.” She left on good terms and decided she wanted to pursue a career with animals. 

She worked at the Brown Lab bar on the mountain and also Treasury Liquors. She was still landscaping but with Spring Creek Landscaping, where she met her husband Rob, who was previously working at Rocky Mountain Trees and then at Spring Creek. “I had a schoolgirl crush on him,” she giggles, ”I couldn’t even talk in front him.” But she reveals that when they initially hooked up, it was all about booty calls but that changed, she said, “When Trump was elected, we decided we’d be in a relationship, because we felt this is real and the world’s coming to an end. We stocked our basement with dog food, dehydrated meals and ammo,” she mused. They married in 2018 and are the proud parents of three dogs and three cats. 

Two winters after leaving CBMR, she manifested her dream of working with animals and was hired at the Animal Hospital of CB (AHCB). For the past two years while working full-time at AHCB, Bowie has been back in school with online studies in Veterinarian Technology at the American Veterinary Medical Association, certified out of San Juan Community College in Farmington, New Mexico. She’s also planning to become a Certified Veterinarian Technician in addition to the degree. 

Bowie loves working at the AHCB. “I finally wake up and look forward to going to work. I feel excited. I love helping animals. I absolutely love driving around town and seeing all these dogs I know. They’re usually pretty excited about seeing me too outside of the office, I like to think.” The vets and techs are the heroes of town quite often and Bowie also knows the difficulties. “There are definitely a lot of hard times and sometimes you get the sick animals that you can’t save even though you try your hardest.”  

Bowie has a vision in her quest to help animals. “My dream is to have a rescue ranch. I really want to have a bunch of land to take in all the homeless animals and give them a place to stay if we can’t find a home for them.” And she’d love to be able to do that in the valley because it’s home. “Crested Butte is like fairytale land; it just sucks you in. Every aspect of my life here is tied with nature — the mountains, the animals and Vinotok. Vinotok has been a big part of my life. And then there’s the skiing, the real locals and the sense of community.” 

A  life well skied…

By Dawne Belloise

Longtime local and mountain enthusiast John Norton will soon be immortalized by the Colorado Snowsports Museum and Hall of Fame as they induct him for his lifelong career contributions to the industry in Crested Butte and Aspen at the end of August.

Adding his name to the great legends including Crested Butte’s Al Johnson, Ralph Walton and Dick Eflin, as well as Aspen’s Walter Paepcke, Friedl Pfeifer and Fred and Elli Iselin, the organization will recognize Norton’s dedication to marketing programs, special events, terrain expansion, community alliance-building and the guest experience. He is being inducted as a ski industry innovator in the Sports Builder category.

Crash landing!
Norton landed in Crested Butte in July of 1985 from New York City after spending his career in marketing with Procter and Gamble. He recalls, “Every time the company wanted to move me, I asked about Denver. I loved the mountains,” and when he figured out that relocation wasn’t going to happen through his company, he set out to find his own way to the mountains. Back then, Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) owners Edward Callaway and Ralph Walton had been looking within the ski industry for a marketing vice president but couldn’t find one. It was Callaway, whom Norton had known from Dartmouth College who suggested Norton as a candidate for the job even though he didn’t have any ski industry experience. Norton and his wife Robin decided to head west and check it out first.

They arrived in April 1985 after the lifts had closed. They had never skied the mountain, which was enshrouded in clouds the entire day-and-a-half they were here. There were no restaurants open for breakfast, lunch or dinner. “We had cloud cover the whole time so we couldn’t see the mountain but it looked decent from the trail maps so I decided to accept the offer.” The first time they actually saw Crested Butte Mountain was in July when they moved here. “I thought it was so beautiful, the whole valley. I was in awe driving up.” In fact, he was in such awe of the scenery that he totaled the company Subaru. They were fine but Norton laughs, “That was day one.”

Fill the airline seats
CBMR had just signed a contract with American Airlines to guarantee the airline revenue for flights to Gunnison from four major cities. “They were betting the company and needed to make sure the program was going to work,” he recalls. Walton, one of the owners of CBMR at the time, had told him that Crested Butte was very well known and people were dying to come, but the valley didn’t have the airline service. “But that was of course a lie. No one had heard of Crested Butte, and no one was dying to come here,” he laughs. 

The CBMR airline program that paid to guarantee airline flights to come to the airport was the first in the industry. It began in 1985 and Norton says that Steamboat and Jackson Hole followed CB’s lead in their 1986/87 season and Vail did the same in 1987/88. “The first year was miserable,” Norton remembers. “By January, we had cut the Houston and Los Angeles service completely and moved Chicago to weekends only. Dallas was laboring but we were able to fix that by the end of the year.” He notes that the route then became successful.

Ski free?
Many remember and took advantage of CBMR’s out-of-the-box “Ski Free” promotion, and you have John Norton to thank for those days when lift tickets cost absolutely nothing. But given CB’s location most people had to come and stay for a few days so money was spent. It was an ingenious plan to bolster revenue for the late November, early December part of the ski seasons that normally was dead. He had conjured to solve an early season attendance problem.

“We would open and lose money between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There weren’t any flights and no one was here.” So Norton pitched the idea to his CBMR bosses of a delayed opening until Christmas, explaining that they’d not only save money but could then use those saved funds for ski patrol and to open the extreme terrain early. Callaway promptly nixed Norton’s idea and reminded Norton that his job was to figure out how to make money in that dead season. 

But Norton thought, “To get people here, then we have to practically give skiing away, but if we’re giving it away how do we make money? Everybody was going broke,” he says of the slump season. “I went to the hotel people in the valley and asked if they’d give us $20 a night (from their bookings) if we had free skiing.” Then he solicited restaurants and retailers for 10% of their increase. At the time, he was on the CB town council, so he recused himself when he also requested 10% of the sales tax increase. Every sector, from council to businesses, unanimously agreed to contribute to the Free Ski concept. They started the campaign in 1991 and, through various iterations, it went on for nine years and was a tremendous success. “Everybody made money,” he says of the popular program. 

Extreme lifts!
It was Norton who argued for the North Face and High Lift installations. He recalls Ralph Walton growing weary of hearing him preach about both lifts, and suggested that Norton essentially put his money where his mouth was. “Ralph said to me, if you want a North Face lift so badly, buy it out of your marketing budget.” Walton figured that would be the end of it, but the wheels started spinning in Norton’s head. “I went back to my office and thought about it, and you know what, I felt it was worth doing.”

Norton had a chat with mountain operations to see how much the lift would cost. “It was about $550,000 for the original Poma that we could buy used from Ski Broadmoor, which had gone defunct.” Then he told Walton that the marketing department would buy the lift and install it. “Ralph was in shock. He was thinking that there’d be no marketing budget for a year,” but Norton convinced him that not only would it be okay, but they’d make a lot more money. The lift was installed in 1988. “And that’s why we have a North Face Lift,” he grins. “The North Face worked out so well that we started talking about the High Lift, but marketing didn’t have to pay for that one. No one had lifts into extreme terrain back then. It was completely novel.”

When the press caught wind of the endeavor, Norton recalls “We were absolutely assaulted by the ski media press who thought we were doing something that was incredibly irresponsible and leading to all sorts of carnage. Bob Gillen, who was running our PR, told Ski Magazine that we didn’t expect to be carrying a bunch of skiers off the hill in body bags. The patrol had a lot of fun with that quote and that’s where the name for the run Body Bag came from on the North Face. There’s another run named Dead Bob’s. Both came from Bob’s PR efforts.”

More… and a move
Norton continually pressed for terrain expansions and lift upgrades, but the ownership of CBMR didn’t want to spend the money to do any of it. “Aspen was doing great at that time, and still is, and I wanted to go work for someone who wanted to win,” he says. He and Robin left Crested Butte for Aspen in 1991. “It was a terrific move. I was certainly heartbroken to leave this community, but Aspen is a terrific community as well. We had major expansions on all four mountains and were installing one or two lifts a year while I was there.” Norton was instrumental, arguably the sole individual, who convinced the Aspen Ski Corporation to lift the ban on snowboards. “Our customers, our skiers, were getting old and not allowing snowboards is kind of sending a signal to younger people that we really don’t like you.” He successfully argued that they needed the next generation. So boarders have Norton to thank for opening the Aspen slopes to them. Norton adds, “The ownership was great. The company was populated with a bunch of wonderful people. I treasured my 11 years in Aspen.”

In 2002, as Norton was entertaining the idea of change to a different ski complex, Edward Callaway asked him to return to CB because “This is where your heart is and the company is all yours,” Norton recalls the conversation. “We were driving over Kebler and had not made up our minds yet but when we came around the curve where you can see Crested Butte Mountain, my wife said, ‘We can’t go anywhere else. Let’s go home to CB.’” Norton returned as CEO of CBMR in 2002.

Norton hadn’t realized the financial difficulties the company had encountered in his years away. “It was pretty clear to me and Edward that I needed to turn the company way around in terms of revenues in two years or sell the company.” They ended up selling the company to the Mueller family in 2004. Norton stayed through the fall of that year and continued as a consultant for seven years. He resigned in 2008 because, by then, he was also CEO of a Boulder company and commuting a week at a time and traveling.

In 2014, he formed his own company, Norton Global, a consulting business that works on and fixes cultural issues inside companies.
These days, Norton runs the area’s Tourism and Prosperity Partnership (TAPP) in the Gunnison Valley as its executive director. “I was asked to step in on a temporary basis in 2016, and then the new board asked me to stay on,” he says. “We do sustainable tourism, and all the trailhead kiosks around the valley. We also do economic development and we help to grow entrepreneurs in the valley.” The ICELab at Western Colorado University is part of TAPP.

Norton has had a ski pass every year since 1985 and clocked in 80 days on the slopes last season. It’s not surprising that Norton feels quite honored to join the likes of the 10th Mountain Division and so many great athletes and ski area founders in the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame. “It’s something really special and a humbling experience,” he says. “I really, really loved being in the ski business and this is icing on the cake.”

The Hall of Fame induction celebration will take place on Sunday, August 27 at the Gerald Ford Amphitheater in Vail. Tickets start at $50, and the event is open to the public and is family friendly.