Transition time…

There are few better things than the first couple days and weeks after the ski area closes. Crested Butte transitions from a tourist hub full of kinetic energy to the sleepy mountain town many of us carry as the touchstone of this place. It will of course gradually ramp up and return to the busy madness of a high tourism season — but for now, it is sleepy and small village quiet.

Be where you are. Breathe. Embrace. Enjoy.

While I didn’t cross paths with a hungry bear on Peanut Lake Road Monday like CB’s mayor, I did experience off-season pretty quickly after the lifts stopped spinning. The sound of a growing Coal Creek was murmuring louder Monday under the bridges at both sides of town. Yard art in front lawns was starting to emerge from the melting winter snow. The smell of weed was prevalent as neighbors chatted on front porches, their Subarus and Toyota pickups loaded for the road. A work crew in broad-brimmed hats and short sleeves was beginning to replace a roof on an old miner’s home. Camp chairs filled with friends spilled into a town street as they reminisced about the coverage on Headwall. Where flower boxes will soon be placed to slow the summer jackrabbits coming off Kebler Pass Road, there was mainly dusty pavement and puddles. The sump pumps have not yet kicked in, the park rakers are not yet stroking the grass.

Perhaps one of the best weeks of the year is the mid-April school break when even more people take off from the North Valley for the beach or desert. If the weather is dry and warm (for us), as it is forecast to be, it is a time of reconnection or new connection. If you recognize a face more than once in this transition time, chances are they live here and there is a common off-season bond made with little effort. The pace is slow, the conversations on the benches long. Bike racks reappear on the back of local vehicles as the shuttles to Hartman’s and Signal Peak increase. The days are noticeably longer and those of us still in town embrace the opportunity for a leisurely…anything.

This transition is a time to recharge after a weird ski season. The last day of the lift-served season was sunny and soft, the perfect way to end a bumpy season described to me on a Sunday chairlift as full of both strikes and gutter balls. True. It is time to be where we are instead of doom scrolling Facebook and worrying about all the ills of the “real” world. There will be time for that too, and while action is called for, so is being centered in your place.

The end of June, July and into September will return us to the urban vibe. Those times are needed as well and provide us the economic means to be here all year round. That is a blessing. But for now, this is a small town of friends and neighbors high in the mountains with not many others here. It is one of the special times at 9,000 feet. Enjoy it. Embrace it. Breathe it. 

Be where you are.

—Mark Reaman