Crested Butte Parks and Recreation department putting it in high gear

Trails and ice rink at top of the list right now

From new trails to new roofs, the Crested Butte’s Parks and Recreation Department has a lot on its plate.

A series of focus group meetings and a public gathering were held this week to discuss the idea of a “perimeter trail” around the town. The trail would be roughly four miles long and would connect current trails, like the Woods Walk, with trails that are not yet built. The idea is to have a loop around town for residents and visitors.
“My hope is that it becomes a destination trail,” explained Parks and Recreation director Jake Jones to the council at its Monday evening meeting. “It would be something for visitors to do. It would be very accessible and it could be a popular amenity. Right now we have a lot of rough single track. This would be different.”
Jones is working with Hugh Osborne of the National Park Service. “We offer trail planning, interpretation, conservation work and design assistance,” Osborne told the council.
“Technical assistance is our focus,” he said. “We will listen to all the community input and we can iron out the details of what they want. The people who live here know best what kinds of trails they want and where they should be located. We can bring the ideas together with a technical background to help make a feasible plan.”
Jones said he is counting on good community input and support. “This will take some time and people may say they want tunnels and boardwalks and bridges and rocket launchers—who knows? We’ll see what can work and over time, we can end up with something pretty good.”
“You have some good stuff here already,” said Osborne. “Jake has some good ideas. We’ll hear what the other people come up with and hopefully those ideas can become reality.”
Osborne said the Park Service picks up his work tab so it will not cost the town anything to employ his help. Jones said even though this perimeter trail idea is in the preliminary stages, he won’t be afraid to look for grants to help complete the trails loop.
On the Big Mine Park side of things, Jones and his crew are also in the thick of gearing up to put a roof over the Big Mine Ice Rink. A $700,000 grant from Great Outdoors Colorado spurred the upgrade, but the town must still raise about $220,000 for the project through private donations and additional grants.
A fundraiser game to help raise the roof on the arena will be played on Saturday, February 12 at 8:45 p.m. and will include a raffle.
The Town Council was presented Monday evening with some preliminary design plans of how the rink could be covered. While nothing is yet set in stone, the town’s Board of Zoning and Architectural Review (BOZAR) will begin looking at the proposal this month.
Jones said the town is refining cost estimates for the project and making sure they are heading in the right direction. “Everything that should be happening on this project is happening,” he said. “The fundraising plan is getting kicked off in earnest. We want to get this out of the ground this summer.”
“The design looks really good,” said mayor Leah Williams. A kick-off presentation to some members of the public was held Wednesday at the Mountain Heritage Museum.
“We have finished up with phase one when we completed our property purchases over there,” explained Jones. “Phase two is covering the rink and putting in the new dasher boards. Phase three is expanding the warming house and putting in possible refrigeration for the rink. Phase four will tie the whole area together with landscaping. The next step is to get BOZAR approval and then get the bid documents together for the steel structure.”
Jones said he was keeping a close eye on the price and timeliness of steel for the roof. “We are optimistic we can meet the November 2011 dedication date,” he said.