The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Open house draws decent crowd
More than 100 people attended an open house at Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) last week to get more information about the resort’s master development plan. According to John Sale, the resort’s director of planning, about 100 people signed in but closer to 130 visited Butte 66 on Wednesday, August 15, where Sale gave a brief presentation and invited attendees to submit written comments.
The master development plan addresses the resort’s plans to extend its permit boundary around the back side of the mountain, add more skiing terrain to the Wolf’s Lair area of Teocalli Bowl, and grow summer activities. Surprisingly, no one asked about Snodgrass during the presentation and only one written comment addressed removing it from the ski area’s permit.
“We received 23 written comments, anything from great, go for it—we’re stoked to more constructive comments,” said Sale. “We saw five that I would say are critical of the plan and certainly one questions the boundaries—‘If we’re extending from Teo Bowl isn’t it time to remove Snodgrass?’ Our proposal is to keep it within our boundary.”
While the master plan actually focuses more heavily on the Teo expansion and summer activities, Sale says the resort does see possibilities for Snodgrass. “What we heard when we went through the whole Snodgrass process was no lifts on Snodgrass.
I think there are opportunities for the whole community to have lower impact activities,” Sale said.
For example, he could see the resort working with the Crested Mountain Bike Association to reroute Snodgrass so it’s open all summer long. In addition, the Forest Service Travel Management Plan approved a cross-country mountain bike trail down Washington Gulch. “We could see doing a single track up the front side so you’re not riding up the road,” he said.
That would be easier to accomplish with Snodgrass inside permit boundaries. Another critical comment addressed a question Sale has addressed many times: Why doesn’t CBMR finish previously approved plans before moving onto new terrain? Some of that, Sale said, stems from confusion over the purpose of a master plan.
“The master plan is an evolving, guiding document. It’s not a check list,” he explained. The resort continually reevaluates its plans to determine what projects will positively impact the business plan. In other words, the resort is going to complete the projects most likely to bring new visitors or repeat business.
So even though the resort has approval to replace Twister and Teocalli lifts, focusing on terrain expansion might have more impact on business. “The master plan is our vision for the next five years. When we develop it, that vision may change with the next master plan,” Sale said.
Overall, however, the resort received a lot of positive feedback. There were several requests for more information on base area development and glading in areas like East River, some of which is already in the works. “We already have previous approvals on the front side in East River and have been doing some work in Horseshoe Springs trying to open that up. Hopefully we’ll do more in the future,” Sale said.
At this point in the process, the most significant revisions to the plan have come from user groups like the hang gliding community and the Wildflower Festival. The latter offered interpretive wildflower hikes on the peak trail this summer, and in looking at ways to improve that experience, the resort determined that trail and restoration work could be appropriate.
“It gets pounded up there, so there may be opportunities to improve it and also restore that trail and some of that habitat,” Sale said.
Once the resort completes final revisions, including some additional road designations requested by the Forest Service, Sale hopes to submit the plan to the agency in the next week or two. At that point, CBMR will make the full document available on its web site. According to district ranger John Murphy, the Forest Service expects to take about a month to complete its final review.
