The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
It would be great to get, say, two of these a month from now through March. And by “these,” I’m talking about the Monday night to Wednesday morning storm cycle that for much of the time dropped a couple inches of fresh snow an hour. And the snow was pretty light and sticky and everything we in a ski town want right now.
What we don’t necessarily want is what the phone forecast predicts for the next 10 days where it will be in the mid-to-high 30s and…sunny. Grrrrr. We’re a ski town dang it! But being in the bullseye for the first major winter storm for the Central Rockies is something special and something to be thankful for.
Oh, right, it’s Thanksgiving weekend and opening week for CBMR. That is something to be thankful for on its own. Lord knows the resort must be thankful this rolled in at the perfect time just before the lifts starting spinning. Maybe that new GM, JD Crichton, is bringing the luck ahead of his start date and leaving the donut holes back east in New Hampshire. We can only hope.
After being here for decades of Crested Butte fall-to-winter transitions, I still get excited when it starts dumping in November. The best seasonal shifts are the ones when you can transition from bike to skis within a week, and while not quite that close this year, it was pretty good. I’m thankful to have gotten some late October/early November singletrack in before pulling out the skis and heading up to Lily Lake. Thanks goes out to Crested Butte Nordic for pulling that together for everyone again this year. It’s a great fall bonus.
People I know who have ventured beyond Lily into the steep backcountry said it was sweet. It will of course be a bit sketchy for a while now with several feet of new snow, so be gentle as the CB Avalanche Center is issuing warnings that the snowpack is tender. Heck, just look at the roof slides. Don’t rush it — it’s the start of a long season — so be smart and be patient.
Sounds like most people driving in this storm were smart and patient. That’s something for which to be thankful. The drive up and down valley was apparently slow going and from what I heard, unlike the work week trade parade from Gunni where a few tweakers are dumb and impatient, there weren’t drivers in such a hurry that they used Highway 135 like a private fantasy track making dangerous decisions to get four cars ahead of where they would be anyway. Sorry—staying in the positive—Kebler Pass Road stayed open and in decent shape until this week and now it will be a snowmobile haven. Irwinites have their places (mostly) back to themselves again and I bet there’s some crusty thanks going on up there.
Despite having to snowblow the driveway twice on Tuesday morning (and more later that day and Wednesday), there was a happy skip to the heartbeat as this first storm turned real. You know it might be good when the back-up beeps from snowplows are waking you up in the middle of the night. And they were. Unlike the early November teasers where we seemed to be in the proverbial donut hole, we were ground zero with this one. That doesn’t always happen so when it does, we can be thankful.
There is of course no shortage of uncertainty lurking in the world right now so take this time to be thankful for the things special to us. Look at the many letters in the paper this week from people thankful for any number of local things, from holiday lights to neighbors, help from local realtors and law enforcement, to the fact we live among ermines.
Yeah, there is still no shortage of issues that are important but it’s Thanksgiving week for goodness sake. In that vein, be thankful there are smart, passionate people who are not afraid to speak up when they see something they feel needs fixed.
And for now, embrace the snow in a ski town. Slow down when you’re driving. Or just slow down, period. Be where you are, which is a pretty good place. And frankly, it’s postcard pretty with the blue sky and sunshine.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. See you up there…
—Mark Reaman
