Bear family emerges from winter slumber…on a ski run

Bear activity ramping up

A section of the extreme limits terrain at Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) will be closed for the remainder of the season, after several bears were spotted emerging from their den on the mountain.

“We had a mom and her two cubs think winter was coming to an end,” says CBMR general manger Randy Barrett. He says the bears were discovered on Thursday, April 3.
“They pushed through the snow out of their den right into the middle of Flatiron,” Barrett says, referring to a popular extreme limits run on the west side of the mountain.
“We heard on Thursday there were people poking their heads right in the hole… With the cubs there and folks knowing the location of the den, it was too much of an attractive nuisance,” Barrett says.
He says the Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) was contacted for advice on how to handle the bear situation.
Gunnison DOW wildlife manager J Wenum says the recommendation was to start small, by creating a buffer zone for the bears and closing off a portion of terrain. “If the bears aren’t making a big issue, let’s not make it a bigger deal than it needs to be,” Wenum says.
Barrett says there are several other runs along the traverse past Flatiron, such as Funnel and Sunset Ridge, which will remain open.
Wenum says the bears were actually less of a problem because of the two cubs. “It sounds like they were young of the year, probably born in January or February. So they’re pretty small animals, and (the mom) is not likely to wander too far, given their size and age,” Wenum says.
It’s not the first bear incident at the ski resort. Barrett says last year a bear was spotted walking under the Silver Queen lift during business hours, but, being a lone bear, it wasn’t much of an issue.
Mt. Crested Butte town manager Joe Fitzpatrick hasn’t heard any other specific reports of bears in town, but encourages residents to take precautions by securing their trash before the bears come back in force.
Just down the hill, a bear hanging around the town of Crested Butte was trapped and re-located last week. “We’re pretty confident he has been living in and around Crested Butte for the last couple of years. Fortunately he really figured out how to stay out of harm’s way and not get caught, until this year,” Wenum says.
Wenum says usually the DOW would give a bear more time to move away on its own, but some unusual circumstances forced an early re-location. “There are still gobs of snow. His food options were limited. It’s going to be a month to a month-and-a half before there is going to be any natural food, so we opted to trap and move that animal,” Wenum says.
Although the heavy snow created one unique bear scenario, Wenum believes the snow will help prevent bear and human encounters for a while longer. “Hopefully it will make most of them come out of their dens a little bit later,” he says. Wenum also says the increased moisture should be good for vegetative production and the bears’ natural dietary needs.
Wenum says only one other bear has been spotted locally so far this spring, near Lake City. The Vail Daily News has also recently reported singular bear encounters in Eagle and Pitkin counties.
Wenum says the DOW will be resuming an educational campaign this year in an attempt to prevent human and bear encounters. The education is as much for people, Wenum says, as it is for the bears.
Last year 59 bears were killed in Colorado, a new state record, after repeated encounters with humans.
Barrett says the resort isn’t taking any additional action at this time, although the terrain may be closed for the rest of the season. “Eventually they’ll move on,” he says of the bears.
The last day of ski season is April 13. The resort will re-open for summer visitors in June.