The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
So there is no shortage of real news in the upper valley these days. There’s a big step in the potential expansion of the ski area, a story on a local man who pulled off a miracle after being buried in an avalanche and a story about local kids dealing with vaping in the school all on page 1. There’s a story about hundreds of acres of land being transferred in the town of Mt. Crested Butte and the town getting about $3 million as a result on page 8. There’s information on a local coal mine on the other side of the pass that will dig for another 10 million tons of old dinosaurs on page 22 and a story on local developers who will likely start major affordable housing developments in Gunnison this summer on page 15.
But my crystal ball says old school Crested Butte will be talking about the story on page 9 where the Adaptive Sports Center has announced that the 24-hour Bridges of the Butte fundraiser will be scaled back to 12 hours. Now, they have their reasons which make sense but I’ll guess that a part of the decision came from pushback about the evolution of the party. My guess is that a couple of pirate parties that used the night as a way to rave had as much to do with the decision as anything.
The last couple of years there were people partying loudly and brightly through the night without officially participating in the Bridges event. That led to legitimate complaints and that led to a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. event this year — Borrrrring! So my guess is that will lead to the end of the event sooner rather than later. Part of the fun was nighttime riding with lights and the moon and the camaraderie of weirdness circling the streets of town in the wee hours. Maybe it would hang on longer if it were a noon to midnight timeframe. Maybe not. What the heck is Michael Blunck going to do at 3 a.m. on June 30?
My guess is that people will see it as the further gentrification of a town shifting toward blue runs instead of the Extremes. They’ll see that as a symptom of the bigger issues. I bet people are more fired up about those 12 hours than any other story in the paper this week. But aren’t they are all connected? That’s my guess anyway…
—Mark Reaman
