PROFILE: Carl Rickey

[ By Dawne Belloise ]

arl Rickey grew up enjoying the salt life in Delray Beach, Florida. Like many beach kids of that era, he spent his days skateboarding all over the neighborhood and surfing in the warm southern Florida waters off the east coast and swimming in the nearby lakes. “Surfing was my favorite, but I didn’t start until high school,” Carl says. His parents split when he was six and he lived with his mom and his siblings, but would see his dad every other weekend. When Carl’s mom decided to move the family to Brevard, North Carolina, during his seventh and eighth grades, everything changed. “We moved into a cabin that was 45 minutes from town,” he recalls. “The cabin was the best. We had a dirt bike track around the house and we were on seven acres.” Life in the woods was freedom and a kid’s dream, and Carl would anxiously await the end of day school bus ride home so he could jump on his dirt bike and ride, “It was awesome to be a kid in the woods. I was loving it.”

By eighth grade they moved closer to town, into a brick house where Carl skated constantly and made new friends, but his mom worried about the small-town culture and mindset. “The town we were in was really redneck,” Carl laughs. “Mom wasn’t happy with it. She didn’t want me to fall into the redneck way.” So, in 2008, they returned to South Florida. The move meant leaving behind his girlfriend. “I was really upset,” he admits. “But that only lasted about two weeks,” he grins. “There was a lot more inventory in Florida.”

High school in Delray Beach was four great years according to Carl, who joined the swim team, mostly to get in shape for surfing. He also played soccer, but really he just spent every spare minute by the ocean. Carl graduated in 2011 with the same girlfriend he had dated all through high school. Carl admits that he had no idea as to what his life path was, but he knew he wanted to go to Flagler College in St. Augustine. However, after only five weeks at that preferred college, Carl transferred to Western State College (now Western Colorado University) in Gunnison, following a friend who had landed there by mere chance. “When I visited Gunnison for 10 days, my friend showed me everything. Coming from Florida and seeing mountains, it popped my eyeballs out,” Carl laughs. “I thought Gunnison was awesome and the mountains were calling,” so he went.

At Western, Carl majored in environmental studies. “I loved the people and the sense of belonging. You can’t beat the people here. It felt like home,” he says, but after four years and just 60 credits, he decided to follow a different path. “I really wanted to be a firefighter,” he explains, drawn by the adrenaline and the chance to help. He left school, completed an EMT program in Crested Butte, and soon found a new adventure.

 Carl had met Hailey Loeffler in class while attending Western. They spent six weeks together in Indonesia, and when they returned, with winter coming and a desire for warmer weather, they decided to stay with his mom in Florida. Carl worked as a marine diesel, which he loved, working on sports fishing boats and yachts. He also loved, “getting sucked into the Florida lifestyle.” When winter ended, Hailey wanted to get back to Crested Butte and they parted as friends. When she later called to say she was pregnant, Carl knew he needed to make a change and he remembers looking back from that Florida dock at the yacht he was working on. “The boat’s name was Plan B,” he says. “What a message.”

Excited about fatherhood and missing the mountains, he returned to Crested Butte with his brother Marshall. Carl called Hailey’s father Holt and asked him to teach him everything about landscaping. The two brothers and Hailey moved into a condo on the mountain and in November 2016, their daughter Rowan was born.

Carl worked for Holt at Alpine Landscapes for four years, even after he and Hailey split amicably when Rowan was one year old. He was living the usual Crested Butte work to play lifestyle when he launched his own company in March of 2020, Momentum Landscapes. “It was not the best time to start since Covid had just hit,” he says. “I had just bought a truck, trailer and bobcat not knowing if there would be work that summer, but I got lucky because everyone wanted to put money into their yards because they were trapped there so there was lots of work. I was fortunate to make it work. That’s when you take risks in life to move forward. And I am so blessed to have a great crew today.” 

Carl began expanding his crew and business and they stayed busy all summer. In the fall they were trying to figure out what to do for winter, “usually you plow driveways and move snow all winter.” So, he and Marshall printed flyers and went door to door to build their snow removal accounts. They signed up 15 homes in Buckhorn just before a big September storm. Marshall decided to move back to Florida, and with his brother gone, Carl became a one-man-show with 40 accounts. Since then, his business has grown steadily. “We’re always full with plenty of work,” he says. Today, Momentum Landscapes handles 130 snow removal accounts and Carl manages a crew of four or five. In 2023, he bought his first house, up in Irwin. “It’s the whole lifestyle,” he smiles about living practically off-grid. “It’s rugged, and I like the adventure that comes with it every day.”

Carl’s life now revolves around work, the mountains and his daughter. “On days I have Rowan, I take her to school in Gunnison. We leave the cabin on snowmobile at 7:23 a.m., get to the trailhead by 7:42 and that gets us to school by 8:25 a.m. with no variables.” Rowan loves her bragging rights, telling friends that she snowmobiles halfway to school and Carl lets her drive part of the way. “It’s such a pretty commute. You get that sunrise, that glow on Anthracite, it makes it all worth it.” 

For Carl, his life balance comes from travel and the ocean. “Surfing is something I still hold onto,” he says. “Every off-season I go on a surf trip for my sanity. I go to Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Baja.” He found a place he can leave his truck and camper and then he can fly back to CB and pick up where he left off. In April, he’ll fly down, pick up his truck and drive it back to CB. 

“This is actually the first year I’ve been able to pull this off and it’s all because I have an awesome crew working with me,” although he emphasizes that he’s definitely not MIA with the business. Carl reflects on his journey to and from sand to snow, “It’s all perspective,” he says. “Coming from South Florida, I appreciate Crested Butte. It’s amazing. I’m fortunate to be able to raise my daughter here. It never gets old, the landscapes, the viewscape, my friends here. My perspective is that it feels like another planet in the valley in general, culturally and topographically. You can’t beat the lifestyle here that’s for sure.”