The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Opens June 8
The Mountain Adventures program offered by the town of Mt. Crested Butte may have their young participants spending most of their summer activity time outdoors, but the program is currently in search of a base of operations.
The town of Mt. Crested Butte is looking for a safe place where groups of 25 or more kids can get picked up and dropped off between activities, as well as a place to take care of administrative functions of the program and store equipment.
Mountain Adventures is a day camp program for ages six to 14 and offers mountain biking trips, rock climbing, hiking, canoeing and more.
In years past Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) has let the town of Mt. Crested Butte use some of their building space at the base area to house the Mountain Adventures program. Last year, Mountain Adventures was based out of the Outpost Building. But the Outpost Building is slated for remodeling this summer and CBMR will be using its other facilities for day-to-day operations.
CBMR is also developing its own summer program for kids, called Camp CB. Camp CB will offer day care activities for kids between two months and 12 years old. CBMR Mountain Schools director Nick Herrin says the new program was developed for CBMR’s summer visitors and conference guests. “A lot of our conference guests are coming in saying ‘Boy, I wish there was something our kids could do,’” Herrin says.
Mt. Crested Butte town manager Joe Fitzpatrick says CBMR’s new kids program won’t have much impact on Mountain Adventures. The town subsidizes Mountain Adventures to keep costs low and the program fills up quickly each year. To make the Mountain Adventures program any bigger, Fitzpatrick says, there would have to be some significant changes to its pricing structure and management. He says Mountain Adventures is mostly geared to local families and second homeowners, whereas CBMR’s kids program will focus on the resort’s conference guests and day-to-day visitors.
Fitzpatrick first informed the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council of the Mountain Adventures situation at the council’s April 21 meeting. Since then, Fitzpatrick says, the town has discovered a few different options for housing the program, but he did not want to discuss those until something is finalized.
At any rate, Fitzpatrick says, the program could always be housed in the Mt. Crested Butte town hall, but it could be tough finding room to store the equipment and get kids in and out on weekends when the staff is gone.
The Mountain Adventures program starts on June 8. Fitzpatrick says he’s confident the town will find a home for it by then.
More information on Mountain Adventures can be found at the town’s website at www.mtcrestedbuttecolorado.us under the Mountain Adventures tab on the side.
More information on CBMR’s Camp CB can be found at www.skicb.com, under the “things to do” tab at the top.
