The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Growing a business
The valley might be inundated with bluebird days and dry weather, but make no mistake, things have been happening at the Crested Butte Nordic Center.
The Crested Butte Nordic Council (which oversees the center and the Crested Butte Nordic team) built a new maintenance barn. In November, executive director Keith Bauer met with the county commissioners to discuss the possibility of new trails on Smith Hill. In December, the Nordic team hosted the Junior National Qualifier races.
That doesn’t even include the biggest news of all: the council took over management of the Elk Mountains Grand Traverse, and the iconic Alley Loop was added to the American Ski Marathon Series roster. Crested Butte’s very own Nordic Center has truly hit the national stage.
Each of these developments has grown out of the vision of the Nordic Council, which hopes to connect the valley’s trail systems and become a travel destination for Nordic skiing. For Bauer, it speaks to how far the Nordic Council has come and to where they hope to go.
“The vision of the board is to expand our trails, eventually, to where we are connecting the communities together. As the valley grows… wouldn’t it be great if there was bus service to Crested Butte South and there were also ski trails to Crested Butte South. Skiing could become more of a way of life. People could ski to work in Crested Butte and take the bus home or vice versa,” Bauer says.
Bauer sees the same potential for Meridian Lake or the North Village, where Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) already partners with the Nordic Center to groom five kilometers of trails at the base of Snodgrass. Bauer and the board would also like to connect the trails off of Peanut Lake Road to the trails on the east side of the valley.
“The goals were shaped by several different things,” says Nordic Council board member Skip Berkshire. “Seven or eight years ago, we went from being a club to being a business, and that was a conscious decision precipitated by rumblings that the town was going to scale back donations to us.”
The council hired Nordic Group International to help them shape goals for Nordic skiing in the valley, Berkshire says. One of those goals was financial independence, so they no longer had to rely on municipal contributions.
“And that kind of evolved by fortunate circumstances to the yurt,” Berkshire says. The council was inspired by Pine Creek Cookhouse near Aspen and the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse near Leadville, where reservations for ski-in dining book months in advance. A donation made it possible to put a yurt on the Magic Meadows trails and start offering a similar experience in Crested Butte. Moonlight Dinners continue to be a popular event for both locals and visitors.
Efforts like the Moonlight Dinners and trail expansions seem to be paying off. According to Bauer, gross revenue has increased about 11 percent a year for the last five years, and there are signs that Nordic skiing is drawing more visitors to the valley.
This year’s Thanksgiving Training Camp drew 140 people; about 80 percent of them came from out of town. And, Bauer says, last year’s Alley Loop drew more participants from outside of Crested Butte than Crested Buttians themselves.
For Bauer, continuing the momentum will be good for the Nordic Center and the valley. He and the board believe there’s demand from the Front Range for not only Nordic skiing but also Nordic hut skiing. They have begun talks with the Bureau of Land Management about possibly putting a hut or two off the Slate River Valley.
“We have heard some people say, ‘You have a lot of trails.’ And we do, but my philosophy is if we put in another trail—say we do the Smith Hill trail—and people still really enjoy them and our revenue keeps increasing and our pass sales keep increasing. That’s telling me we’re still heading in the right direction,” Bauer says.
Of course, change grows slowly, especially for a nonprofit organization. According to Bauer, financial independence does not mean excess cash flow. The Nordic Council relies heavily on donations and volunteer help. The new Snowcat barn was built largely through volunteer labor.
And creating new trails requires securing easements and developing partnerships that take time to grow. With the completion of the Big Mine Ice Arena, Bauer says that the Big Mine Park master plan will provide opportunities to look next at expanding the Nordic Center building, which is owned by the town and also houses the ice arena warming house, and creating a one-kilometer loop on the ditch trail where people now play Frisbee golf.
The Nordic Council also talks about securing the proper easements to create the perimeter trail the town is working on. The benefits, as Bauer sees it, are many: the Nordic Center would become more of a central hub so skiers could access all trails from one place; the groomer and snowmobiles could reach all trails without using town streets; and connecting trails creates the perception of a broader trail system.
It will be a lot of work. Even as Bauer and the council chip away at trail expansion, their first priority is to purchase another snowcat. At a cost of about $165,000, a second snowcat would make it possible to groom an expanded trail system.
“It’s tough for us to do that kind of addition to our operation with the type of revenue we bring in, so we do have to rely on donations and support from the community that comes in,” Bauer says.
He credits donations like the yurt and the volunteers who shovel snow on the trails (especially this winter) with making the Nordic Center what it is. It’s come a long way, he says, from the days when they didn’t even have a phone system. When he started as director, desk staff shouted up the stairs when he had a call.
But with community support, including already strong partnerships with valley players like CBMR, the Crested Butte Land Trust and private landowners, Bauer believes the Nordic Center will continue to grow and be a vital part of the community.
“Keith [Bauer] coined the phrase ‘community owned Nordic Center,’ not only in the sense of financial support we get from community, but in the sense of the emotional and the appreciation that it is a key component of the winter economy. That support is really good. We couldn’t do a lot of the functions we do without volunteers,” Berkshire says.
