The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Crested Butte feels like home for JD Crichton and fam
By Kendra Walker
The Crested Butte News recently chatted with JD Crichton, Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s new vice president and general manager, as he settles into his role on the mountain. JD is no stranger to Crested Butte and the Gunnison Valley, having served as CBMR’s director of food and beverage from 2017 to 2021. He has held various roles in the ski industry over his 25-year career at resorts in Maine, Colorado and New Hampshire. Most recently, Crichton was director and general manager at Wildcat Mountain Resort in New Hampshire. Here’s what he had to share about himself, Crested Butte and his goals for CBMR moving forward:
Welcome back. How has it been getting settled these first couple of weeks?
It’s been a really warm welcome and return home. Just going down Highway 135 again and looking at Crested Butte and the Paradise Divide feels incredible. The settling in process will still take a while.
Remind us about your background and your connection with Crested Butte.
In the late 90s I was invited by a friend to chase the dream and take a gap year from university. I was fortunate enough to take advantage of that opportunity and moved into a little apartment in the Ore Bucket building at the Four-way and accepted the role as a bellman for CBMR at the Marriott. I had an absolutely amazing year, it was a year that reset what I wanted to do and how I wanted to approach my career. I then went back to university and I graduated a few years later with a degree in business management. After Crested Butte I spent a few years working in Summit County, and then the Vail Valley where I met my wife, Stacy. We had our first child, Oscar, and then our second boy, Hollis.
I had the opportunity to return to Crested Butte in 2017 as the food and beverage director at CBMR under Triple Peaks and the Mueller family. That was absolutely awe-inspiring, and I was so excited to get back to the valley to reunite with friends I’d kept close and take the lead on stewarding Crested Butte. Shortly after that CBMR integrated with Vail Resorts. We navigated the integration and brought everyone online, and that really brought us together as a team at the resort.
A few years later I got the opportunity to move back east. Both my wife and I are from Maine, so we were able to move closer to family, return home and spend time with grannies and grandpas. It was there that I got to cut my teeth in running a mountain, one that is not very different from Crested Butte. There’s a lot of the same community sentiment and passion. It’s a rugged and raw mountain that requires stamina and resilience to operate.
It resides next door to Mount Washington, which gets quite a bit of inclement weather. My time there taught me a lot about both operating and leadership, and what it means to really embed yourself into a community and connect the place we love to ski with the community.
Then a few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to return to CBMR. I couldn’t have been more humbled and honored to accept the role. It’s as close as you get to a life dream, returning back with my family: Stacy, our two kids, and our fifth family member, our big dog, Atlas. It’s a serendipitous, fortunate, incredible journey to get the opportunity to come back to a place that I’ve held dear for the past 20 years.
How does the family feel about coming back to Crested Butte?
Crested Butte has helped raise my boys and they absolutely love it and they have dear friends in the valley they’ve been eagerly waiting to return to. It’s made the return all that much easier for Stacy and I to relocate the family. Oscar is 10 and Hollis is 7, and they have grown up on skis since shortly after their first birthdays and spend the majority of their time mountain biking or skiing or adventuring. I hope my boys find as much joy in exploring the opportunities here as I have.
Coming back to CB, what changes have you noticed?
You sometimes don’t reflect on how special a place is until you have departed. When I left Crested Butte, I was fortunate to go to a beautiful community in the Mount Washington Valley and live and breathe in a community very similar in that they love outdoor recreation and steward those outdoor activities and opportunities. Returning to Crested Butte, there is so much that hasn’t changed and so much that still thrives in our uniqueness and charm. Elk Ave is still a wonderful afternoon stroll, and the peak still stands out from the valley floor and you look down Paradise Divide and I don’t know if there’s a more beautiful view in the country.
What are some of your initial goals for the mountain this year?
I’m really fortunate to have returned to Crested Butte with such an amazing group of leaders already in place. Tim Baker did a phenomenal job of connecting the senior leadership team and integrating and connecting the mountain and the community. Tara (Schoedinger) was a phenomenal leader; she was the first female VP and GM at CBMR. She was able to leave her mark on the community and the team. And the team has been operating this mountain effectively without a GM before I came in and that is a testament to how wonderful they are at their jobs. Reconnecting with the team is the primary goal I have in the short term. Hopefully it gives them an opportunity that the dreams they aspire to are achievable no matter where you want to go in this company. So, for me it’s connecting with the community, the team and diving into the culture and effectively keeping our pulse and operating.
What about long-term goals?
I want to solidify our working ways and make sure we’re doing everything possible to navigate our external community, including workforce housing, stewarding the land with the forest service, the way we work and collaborate with the town and the Gunnison Valley. Those are so important to the continuity of the mountain. We are stewarding Crested Butte Mountain and it’s everyone’s mountain. These partner entities work so collaboratively together and that is absolutely critical to keep that relationship. It’s a continuation of the work that’s been done over the years and it’s incumbent on all of us to work together. I’m new in the role and going to try to help balance it with a beginner’s mindset and integrate my leadership style.
Anything new you’re excited to bring to the resort?
My priority is focusing on the team. I love skiing, I’m deeply passionate about the sport and the outdoors. I want to get out and connect with our teams and our guests and I want to explore the mountain and look at it through a different lens and better understand what to do to support our teams to make sure their experience here is the best it can be. I truly believe the culture of the team creates the best experience for our guests. If I can positively impact the experience our employees have, that’s first and foremost on my list. That will take some time but hopefully we’ll find new and unique ways to bring to life an experience that’s elevated. I look forward to bringing our guests, new and old, local and destination, memorable days on the mountain.
How does the team look so far?
It’s not often the case in the ski industry that you see strength in staffing so early on in the season, but I couldn’t be more overwhelmed with the hiring leaders of our mountain and our staff. We are at or near 100 percent of our staffing, and the majority of our employees we have are actually returning, so kudos to that team. It resonates with the sentiment that they’re connected with this mountain. The team opened with some of the most acreage we’ve seen in almost a decade. The majority of the work that goes into building the foundation of the mountain is not necessarily attributed to mother nature, that’s the hard work of our mountain ops team and the snow surface team specifically. That team has done an exceptional job, and I couldn’t be more proud arriving at this mountain and watching them unlock historical terrain in the pre-holiday season.
What significant capital improvements do you foresee in the next five years? And what would you prioritize as needed capital improvements?
I really need to dig in with the master development plan and better understand what the footprint looks like, and I haven’t had time to look at the long-term outlook just yet. Our teams have been focused on the infrastructure of the mountain. What we find in this industry is that there’s a level of maintenance required that’s not as bright and shiny from a guest perspective. It’s the behind-the-scenes stuff to help ensure we stay open. I’m meeting with the mountain team to better understand what we’re prioritizing, and I’m curious to find their perspective on long-term objectives.
What are your favorite ski runs?
The terrain changes so much on this mountain and there are endless runs. I have spent a large part of my adult life skiing Crested Butte and every time I go out to ski I find pockets that I never knew existed before. I have memories from so many pitches on this mountain. I enjoy all that the NFL and High Lift have to offer, whether I’m finding different things in Phoenix, Spellbound, Hawks Nest or Teo. Then I go out with my kids, hitting the park at Painter Boy, letting my son experience Rambo for the first time…those are memories you can’t take away. This mountain is endlessly fun, and I don’t know if I could ever coin one run in particular to be my favorite.
Favorite Crested Butte event?
Opening Day is up there, that’s a really important and special day. Vinotok is a pretty awesome community gathering. The AJ has got so much character and love and joy and showcases the color of our community. That’s one I always look forward to seeing —from a distance, (I played on telemark skis a bit back in Summit County but I find that my alpine boots keep me happy and healthy.)
What are some other interests and hobbies you like to do in your spare time?
I often say to my wife, “All the things, all the time, all at once.” I’m a big skier and a big mountain biker. We’re a skiing and mountain biking family. We enjoy rafting down the Gunnison River, going to Hartman’s and Moab and just playing here in the valley. It’s really hard to leave Crested Butte when this valley affords you a little bit of everything. It really has whatever you want from an outdoors perspective.
Anything else to add?
Overall, I’m just excited to be here and super fortunate to be back in the community. I’m looking forward to connecting with local stakeholders, our teams and I just couldn’t be more proud to be given this opportunity to lead Crested Butte Mountain Resort.