Progressive Book Reading on Bikes with Matthew Taylor

Pedal along with humorist and long-time beloved friend of Crested Butte Matthew Taylor as he reads Crested Butte-centric stories from his award-winning memoir Goat Lips: Tales of a Lapsed Englishman. The lively 1.5-mile criterion departs from Townie Books on Elk Avenue visiting local stops to hear “hilariously nimble” and “deeply poignant” stories before looping back to Elk Avenue for drinks and conviviality (non-bikers can take the shortened route straight from Townie Books to drinking). Meet at Townie Books Thursday, August 30 at 6 p.m. It is free. Taylor is also conducting a storytelling workshop on Saturday and Sunday. The workshop culminates in a live showcase of your crafted story in a Moth-Style Storytelling Showcase, Sunday, September 2, at 6:30 p.m. at the Eldo.

How’s your ping pong game?

The Crested Butte Table Tennis Association is hosting a league kick off round robin social on Wednesday, September 5 at Pitas in Paradise from 8-11 p.m. For more info check out www.cbtta.org. Live long, play Pong.

Zach Bauer artist reception

The consciousness of our incredible connection to the world is a central theme in Zach Bauer’s show “Tableau of Landscape Humane.” He likes to bring people closer to each fleeting moment that resides in every minute of life. His paintings mainly feature human figures interacting with enticing landscapes and wildlife. His show runs until September 10 at the Piper Gallery. The reception takes place Tuesday, September 4 at 5:30.

Mt. Emmons Mining Company Open house 

The Mt. Emmons Mining Company (MEMC) will be hosting an open house from 4:30 to 7 p.m. at Crested Butte Town Hall on Thursday, August 30. During the event, representatives from the mining company, the state Division of Reclamation, Mining, and Safety (DRMS), and other stakeholders will be on hand to update the public on current and on-going reclamation and water quality improvement efforts being undertaken at the Historic Keystone Mine; as well as field and answer questions from the community. This is a great opportunity to learn more about Mt. Emmons and join the conversation on reclamation and water quality in the Coal Creek watershed. This event is free and open to the public.

Get Jazzy

The Colorado Jazz Musicians Festival is just around the corner. It will take place from Sept 7 to 9 in Crested Butte. The inaugural event features 14 acts involving more than 30 musicians during the festival’s 3 days. General admission 3 day passes include admission to all performances at Crested Butte’s Center for the Arts outdoor stage, and evening shows in Mt. Crested Butte’s Grand Ballroom at the Lodge at Mountaineer Square. Day passes and tickets to individual acts are also available. Visit Cojazzfest.org for more info.

Birthdays:

August 30 – Steve Jennison

August 31- Rene Defourneaux

September 1- Craig Sikes, Josh Roland, Christy Sunter

September 2- Brady Babbitt, Kasey Bussiere, Theresa Henry, Maggie Donahue Dethloff, Joe Fitzpatrick

September 3- Matt Martin

September 4- Rick Rutkowski

September 5- Aleesha Towns-Bain, Laura Smith, Genevieve Bachman, Brooks Hudson

Several areas near Crested Butte included in report, recommendations slated for Spring 2019

By Katherine Nettles

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) released a draft Wilderness Evaluation Report earlier this month for the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest (GMUC), describing how more than 40 areas in the Gunnison and Paonia Ranger Districts, among others, were rated for wilderness features.

The purpose of the plan revision is to determine what, if any, areas to ultimately recommend to the U.S. Congress for designation into the National Wilderness Preservation System. The public is now being asked to comment on the findings.

Wilderness designation offers the highest level of public lands protection while still providing for multiple uses such as wildlife habitat, headwaters protection, and recreation.

The GMUG plan revision process is in the second stage of four, having first gone through an inventory of lands deemed appropriate to evaluate. The inventory included areas that span at least 5,000 acres or are adjacent to existing wilderness; do not have motor vehicle access; and do not have other “substantially noticeable human impacts on the land,” according to the USFS Inventory Criteria documents.

The evaluation report describes how closely each area matches criteria set forth as wilderness characteristics: apparent naturalness; opportunities for solitude or unconfined recreation; sufficient size; features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value; and degree to which the area may be managed to preserve such characteristics.

Lands assessed in the report within the Gunnison and Paonia Ranger Districts that are near Crested Butte include Castle, Poverty Gulch, Whetstone Mountain, Gothic Mountain, Schofield Pass, Brush Creek, Spring Creek, Union Park, Taylor Canyon, Mount Emmons, Beckwith Mountain, and McClure Pass.

All were evaluated as moderately characteristic of wilderness except for Mount Emmons, marked as low; Castle, marked high; and Beckwith Mountain, marked high.

The next step is for public feedback, which will be taken through September 5. Then the USFS will re-evaluate based on any compelling new insights provided.

Matt Reed, public lands director with High Country Conservation Advocates, has been working closely with the Forest Service throughout the evaluations and emphasized the importance of specific public feedback.

“The Forest Service is looking for detailed, substantive comments. Not just, ‘I love wilderness,’ or ‘I think we need more wilderness (or less),’ but more detailed and intimate knowledge of these places. What did they get right or wrong? We want people providing photographs, documents, on-the-ground knowledge of these landscapes that help the Forest Service come up with accurate characterizations and evaluations,” said Reed.

Since the outset of the process the GMUG reports having received more than 9,000 written comments and more than 500 original letters from the public, “sharing concerns and ideas around issues ranging from economics to ecosystems to education,” according to the Forest Planning Team via e-mail.

From there, a draft plan moves to stage three, the analysis, and the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is scheduled for release in the spring of 2019. The DEIS leads to the last stage, the final recommendation to be presented to the federal government in 2020.

According the GMUG, Forest Plans are supposed to be revised every 15 years at most. The current Forest Service plan for the GMUG is from 1983, and according to Reed is the oldest and still operating plan in the United States. In the early 2000s the GMUG underwent the same extensive process of drafting an updated forest plan with recommendations, and released a DEIS in 2007. But it was never signed by the planning committee and was eventually scrapped.

“The GMUG’s 34-year-old Forest Plan is outdated, increasingly irrelevant, and unable to manage the tremendous user growth and environmental changes that the landscape has experienced over the past three decades,” according to the HCCA forest revision webpage.

“This is a dynamic process, with public input at every stage,” said Reed, who underscored the importance of following through this time. “The decisions that are made today really shape public land for decades to come. We cherish wild, public lands and opportunities afforded for our recreation and also the space for wildlife. Crested Butte and the Gunnison Valley have participated in this process, and I expect that they will continue to engage… This puts the power in our hands to be a part of a wonderful opportunity.”

Public comments can be submitted via e-mail to gmugforestplan@fs.fed.us.

Local group assigned to figure out long and short-term solutions to delivery 

By Cayla Vidmar

The new delivery system for Mt. Crested Butte base area businesses, which has delivery trucks utilizing a space in the Mountaineer Square Bus Loop, is proving to be difficult to manage, so a task force of area stakeholders has been assembled to figure out short- and long-term solutions. The new system was implemented this summer.

Delivery in this area has been a long-term struggle. The struggle started in 2005, when Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s (CBMR) Cimarron Building, which was slated for construction where the current adventure park is located, complete with a loading dock, was not built due to the economic downturn, according to Mt. Crested Butte community development director Carlos Velado.

“This lack of a loading dock has created delivery issues for the Town as delivery services use the end of Emmons [Road] for their loading and unloading,” Velado explained via email. “The problem is compounded with the use of Emmons Road as a drop-off area for our visitors to the base area. When construction began for the Adaptive Sports Center’s Kelsey Wright Building in the base area, this delivery area at the end of Emmons Road was cut off.”

According to Velado, a task group has been put together to try to figure out long- and short-term solutions to the delivery and drop-off issues at the end of Emmons Road. In the interim, the town has created a delivery zone in the transit center. “The idea is for the various delivery services to use the designated area for their deliveries,” said Velado.

This short-term solution has been causing some headaches, and Velado writes, “The biggest matter we are dealing with is educating the delivery drivers on the new system, i.e., where to park, where not to park, how to park.”

Velado admitted, “There have been complications for the Mountain Express and RTA bus services when the delivery area is not used properly.”

Mountain Express transit manager Chris Larsen echoes those struggles. “There have been issues—delivery trucks are supposed to use the designated space to park and if that space is taken they should leave the transit center and park somewhere else until the space is available,” Larsen said. “Some do but most will find a different space to park and unload.”

Larsen recounts a particular incident where a truck that was delivering to the Lodge at Mountaineer Square blocked the entrance to the bus loop, preventing bus access to the entire transit center.

The task group—which is comprised of members from the Mt. Crested Butte Planning Commission, the Town Council, the Mt. Crested Butte police, the Crested Butte Fire Protection District, the Adaptive Sports Center, Crested Butte Mountain Resort, Mountain Express, the RTA, and other base area stakeholders—is developing additional solutions and addressing misuse of the Emmons Road drop-off. Velado also states that the Downtown Development Authority is currently exploring options for skier drop-off north of the Grand Lodge.

Until solutions are found, Larsen believes that in all likelihood, the transit center delivery will continue into the winter.

There’s a part of MJ Vosburg’s story that’s atypical of many of the Crested Butte narratives. She’s a self-confessed mediocre alpine skier and doesn’t like to mountain bike since her first foray into the locally popular sport when she took a hard fall on her face and decided that was the end of that.

She emphasizes that she’s definitely not a mountain climber, although she loves to hike. In fact, she’s an avid hiker.

Essentially, MJ’s story is that she moved to Crested Butte for love, relocating here to be with Joel Vosburg in 1982. “I was never a single person in Crested Butte. Joel and I started our young lives together here.” She traded her career in psychology for life in a mountain town with a guy she was madly in love with.

Born and raised in Nashville until she was 18, she initially headed west to attend Denver University, earning her degree in psychology and social work. “I came to Denver on a plane. I had never been west of the Mississippi but DU gave me the best deal,” she says of her scholarship, and as for coming to Colorado, she smiles, “It changed my life and I never looked back.”

After graduating in 1980, MJ was hired as a counselor at a residential group home for 14-year-old to 18-year old girls. “Most of these girls had been removed from their homes because of their parents, or lack of parenting. You worked 24 hours on and 48 off.”

She and Joel had met and dated in college but as MJ says, “We broke up forever. I was more focused in my life at that point than he was.”

When Joel was hired for Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s Crested Butte student employee program, he moved up here. “I was in Denver. By the end of that winter he came to Denver and said we needed to be together.” MJ agreed and thought it would be best for them to move to Crested Butte for a year before deciding where to live their real life, and, she grins, “We never left.”

MJ got a job making sandwiches in the deli that used to be in the Emmons building on the mountain before landing a job as personnel director at Ptarmigan Realty. When Ptarmigan went out of business in April 1982, everybody lost their job, and she recalls the frenzy that ensued.

“Joel and I were getting married in May when they went belly-up and I was the main bread winner,” she recalls. “Lou Costello called me about the complex phone system that Ptarmigan had because everyone at CBMR also used it and it was going to shut down with the company going out of business. No one knew how to run it except me and Dave Lindsey. They offered me a job,” because, she says, they really had no choice except to hire her to operate that phone system.

Later, she evolved into the sales department for CBMR, selling ski packages to groups, when most of the busier skier days saw the slopes thick with tourists from Atlanta, Texas, Oklahoma and Florida.

MJ left CBMR to work for Solutions Inc., then the biggest property management company in the valley, and stayed with them for a decade as director of sales and marketing. “It was before CBMR got into the lodging business and we worked with them a lot. In those days, the talent that was in the ski resort was amazing. Skier days were at their peak in the late 1980s because of the masters of marketing.”

In fact, MJ says, “CBMR was setting the tone for the ski industry for Colorado. We did things first, like the direct flights from Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and eventually Chicago and Newark. They developed so many innovative programs, like celebrity ski events that were a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis, through American Airlines.”

CBMR was also bringing in top-notch musicians who performed in the spacious Rafters (now demolished), amazing talent like the Allman Brothers, Gloria Estefan, Juice Newton, the Bee Gees, Roy Orbison and more. She notes that the X Games started here in the West, as well as the late, great Country in the Rockies.

There were also President Jimmy Carter’s ski events. “President Carter’s auctions, dinners and events raised money that went to help his Atlanta Project, kids that the Carters were very involved with. It was a great hey-day here. It all started in Crested Butte.”

But also during those days, many locals who had children decided to leave because, as hopping as the ski area was, MJ remembers, “You couldn’t make enough money because there weren’t enough consistent jobs. The Crested Butte school only went up to fifth grade and then your kids had to be bused to Gunnison, so most families left. That’s when the groups of people started realizing they needed more school space, because we didn’t want to send our sixth-grade kids to Gunnison and town was growing. There were more of us who had kids and who wanted to stay.”

MJ recalls the consensus in town was that a new middle school had to be built, for sixth through eighth grades. “We put it on the ballot, to split the Crested Butte school district from Gunnison, but it failed since all the votes were in Gunnison. After that failed election, we had more people getting involved and got it back on the ballot to build a K through 12 school at the north end of the valley, and it passed. What changed was that the school district realized that the population had grown in Crested Butte and also the Gunnison schools were aging.”

In 1987 Joel and MJ had their son, Zach, and built one of the only two houses in the town of Mt. Crested Butte, on Paradise Road.

“As young parents, we were working to get the schools built. The land that the Crested Butte Community School sits on now was part of an intricate trade agreement between the school district and the town of Crested Butte,” she notes. Having the necessary new school finally in the works played an integral part in keeping not only the Vosburgs in Crested Butte, but many families.

And town was indeed changing. The ski area had grown enough to provide more year-round jobs. Joel became CBMR’s food and beverage director and MJ was working at Solutions. “We just kept working. We worked a lot. We were a little family and our emphasis was starting to change. My emphasis changed from really focusing on the work that I was doing and being part of the mountain ski industry to being a mother.”

And the shift happened for Joel also, because the food and beverage business was not family-conducive. Joel worked all day and late into the night, oftentimes having to close down the Rafters. Joel quit his job in 1989, not knowing what he was going do, but they resolved the issue, “He became the primary parent and I was still working at Solutions for Crested Butte Accommodations.”

Joel mostly took care of Zach, moonlighting as a chimney sweep and waiting tables at the Artichoke (now the Avalanche) before deciding to go into real estate.

“We had put off having a second child and we had considered leaving but didn’t want to,” MJ says. Even though real estate was in the tank at that time, they decided to have another child anyway and their daughter, Emma, was born in 1991. With Joel now at Becky Hamlin Realty, MJ took the big step, leaving her long-time job to once again be a fulltime mom. “It was the best decision I ever made for my family and myself,” she realized. “The beautiful thing that happened was that I let go of all this drive and career stuff,” which then opened the door to far more interesting opportunities. “I started working for the Lodging Tax Panel, now called the Tourism Association. Their goal was to market summer and fall in Crested Butte and Gunnison. Back then, our summers weren’t so crazy and there needed to be more emphasis on summer tourism.”

In 1993, MJ began working as the ad sales person for the Crested Butte Magazine, a position she still has after 25 years. “I get to work with my best friend, Sandy Fails, it’s the best gig ever,” she smiles. MJ also sells ads for Elk Mountain Real Estate Review as well as the In-Room Guide, a tabbed book that goes into almost all the rental hotels and condos. In 2005, she and Sandy Fails published Where the Road Ends, a coffee table book about Crested Butte. “I did the business legwork. I was the publishing and marketing sales side of it. I’m not a writer,” she says modestly, although she did contribute an entire chapter. “But it’s fun to be associated with such a talented writer,” she notes of her best friend.

MJ met Sandy when she offered her a proposition, knowing Sandy was home with her son, Chris, and MJ needed a reliable babysitter for Zach. “I called Sandy and said, you don’t know me but would you consider taking care of my son two days a week?” and Sandy said, “No.”

However, a few days later, after considering the offer, Sandy decided to give it a try. So began the relationship of Zach and Chris, who are still very tight friends, and Sandy and MJ in 1988. “I can’t even imagine having a better friend than Sandy. Our sons grew up together and she’s Emma’s godmother,” MJ says.

MJ served on the school board for more than seven years, from 2003 through 2010. “The school district was on financial probation with the state—bad decisions were made for good reasons. It was hard, it was a mess and required so much time and you’re messing with people’s kids, so everybody’s your boss. We had a fantastic group of people who stepped up and joined the board. We had to get out of the financial mess we were in and the community stepped up and passed the mil levy override, which provided $1.2 million to the school budget in the whole school district in 2005. Already the Crested Butte school, which had been built for 350 kids, had started to burst at the seams, so we started working toward expansion, doubling the numbers of classrooms and building an additional gym.”

The 2008 election’s $55 million bond issue passed and doubled the capacity by expanding the CBCS. MJ laughs, “They told us we were crazy. We built this school to accommodate 750 kids and we’re already up over 700. Now the district is looking again at having to do another expansion or build another school. Though I was quite reluctant to ever go on the school board it was truly one of the most rewarding and taxing things I’ve ever done.”

These days, MJ prefers to spend more time inward. “I still try to spend time with friends and family but I spend a lot of time on my own. I’ve gotten quieter. Today, the big change that I actively seek is a slower pace and to take more time with whatever, to not be a part of the frantic, busy world and to be present and appreciate and notice and live each day with gratitude.”

Above all, she cherishes her relationships. “I feel like Crested Butte, although it’s gone through many changes, is still the best place I’ve ever found to foster and support relationships. I’m extraordinarily ordinary,” she thinks, “and this is the most amazing place to be ordinary. Every morning I look out my window and look up Paradise Divide and every day it’s different and every day it’s the same. And that is what fills my soul.”

From climate action to proclamations

By Mark Reaman

Town Council priorities identified at a February retreat were briefly reviewed last spring. The town is on the path to accomplish some of the goals, while others will likely be delayed a bit.

“It is good to have this type of report because too often in the past we write a bunch of things on the wall at a retreat and everything goes into the fog machine,” said mayor Jim Schmidt as he thanked town manager Dara MacDonald for providing the overview.

Here is a sampling of the status of some of the town’s priorities:

Climate Action: The town contracted with Western State Colorado University to inventory town emissions and draft an emissions reduction action plan.

Affordable Housing: The council will discuss and decide on appropriate density for development of blocks 76 and 80. Councilman Will Dujardin reminded his fellow council members he will be pushing for increased density with affordable housing projects in the area. The council also wants to explore ways to get affordable housing on Elk Avenue and other commercial zones, the idea being perhaps such units could be used for long-term rentals or occupied by those who own businesses in the building.

Mt. Emmons: Work is continuing with the Mount Emmons Mining Company, the state and the county to find a permanent solution to the mine as well as to participate in discussions about remediation efforts. Councilman Jackson Petito noted that molybdenum prices have recently been on the rise.

Improving Governmental Relations: The Crested Butte Town Council has been on a dining tour with fellow political entities in the county. Dinner with the Mt. Crested Butte council and lunch with the Gunnison council have been held. An Elk Avenue Prime gathering included all elected officials in the valley and the idea is to hold such gatherings regularly with the next scheduled to be held in Mt. Crested Butte this fall.

Camping at Avalanche Park: This could take a back seat to other work. While still on the list of future projects, it might be late summer or fall at the earliest that staff will find time to address camping at Avalanche Park. Avalanche Park is located just south of Crested Butte at the Baxter Gulch trailhead.

Other priorities in the works include creating a community comprehensive plan and updating the three-mile plan with the county and Mt. Crested Butte. That plan is expected to take some significant time but a community-wide survey could start the project in 2018. Solidifying the Deli Trail easements, protecting the natural environment, posting the town’s property in Irwin so people know it is public property, diversifying employment opportunities and routinely issuing proclamations honoring community members are other priorities the staff continues pursuing.

By Dawn Belloise

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.” —Woodrow Wilson

What better way to kick off the Fourth of July shindig than with an all American Crested Butte tradition—PANCAKES! First things first on this illustrious holiday: To sustain your energy throughout the many events all day, you’ll need to load up the calories. From 7 to 10:30 a.m. on the celebrated day, the Crested Butte Fire and EMS Squad at the Fire Station, 306 Maroon Avenue, will be flipping those pan-cookies, along with sausages and fixins’. It’s advisable to get there early because it gets packed as the crew serves flapjacks to more than 1,200 people. That’s probably more than 2,400 pancakes (who can eat just one?).

Crested Butte is especially known for its community-wide Fourth celebrations and outrageous parades. Throughout its history, Crested Butte’s local population has put on a spectacle of creatively wacky floats and processions that border on the preposterous and always in good humor. In times past, the parade was small enough that it went up Elk Avenue and then reversed for a repeat performance in the opposite direction.

Locals will gather for days before the parade to create their costumes and floats. Some of the more innovative ones in the past included the ski jump packed with snow on the back of a truck, created by former town mayor Alan Bernholtz who bedazzled the crowd by hucking himself down the jump in full disco threads with his wig hat on his head. Then there was Alan’s daring bike jump through a hoop of fire, and his water slide during another parade, all on the back of a truck. Another float that awed the masses was Tucker Roberts doing full back layout on a trampoline while the float was moving. Then there was the time when Burt Rentals would ride snowmobiles in the parade with wheel attachments on the skis. And who can forget Tony Wildman in an American flag g-string on a horse?

In the earlier days of wildness, during the bicentennial parade of 1976, the scandalous Red, White & Blue Girls used only paint as their costumes. Most of them were topless, some were completely naked, and some of the crowd didn’t even realize the infamous troupe had only body paint on for the now-legendary tribute to freedom of speech.

Long-standing floats and groups to watch for are the Red Ladies, the wild sisters who represent the spirit of Red Lady Mountain—aka, Mount Emmons—in the town’s battle to keep a molybdenum mine from desecrating the sentinel, with the High Country Conservation Advocates leading the fight.

There’s the Flauschink Royal Has-Beens who follow the current Flauschink King and Queen in their Royal Chariot.

The hippest of funkiness belongs to the effervescent, groovin’ KBUT float with its disco dancers and mirror ball, hosting the chosen King and Queen of Soul.

The ecologists and biologists at Rocky Mountain Biological Labs (RMBL) in Gothic are brilliant researchers and scientists who work hard and let their hair down for Independence Day. It’s the only day they get off during their intensive summer work.

The RMBL folks in all their greenery have been favorites in the parade for as long as they’ve been marching. They come with spears and pots and pans, whistles and bells and wild primitive faces that tell of being in the sun too much, alone with plants, insects and marmots. They live under the towering cathedral spires of Gothic Mountain until the flora dies and snow threatens, but for one hot summer day in July, they costume up, wearing only corn lily leaves, which they sew together themselves. Marching in their outfits that conjure up images of crazed aboriginal biologists, they proudly chant and stomp their way up the parade route. In past years, after marching through to the end of the Elk, they’d walk backwards down the avenue, but these days, the parade is too big for that.

Current Crested Butte mayor Jim Schmidt—aka “Deli”—has been in town for the celebration every year since 1977. Having served as mayor in the past as well as on Town Council for well over two decades, he says of his 1995 brainstorm, “I decided that what the council should do was scoop up the horse poop in the parade. How could a Town Council be of better service to their community than slinging poop? I thought it was very symbolic.” He laughs about the past tradition that no longer exists since there are no horses in the parade anymore, but he adds that both tourists and locals got the message back in the day.

Deli feels the holiday is so special in the Butte because everybody gets to celebrate it in their own way and as for the parade, “There are no boundaries as to what you can put into the parade as far as floats. It’s freedom of expression and that’s what the Fourth is all about. A few years back, there was a move to ban political statements in the parade but the Fourth is a political holiday. We rebelled… That’s what we’re celebrating. That’s why I think if somebody makes a statement, whatever the statement is, it’s cool that they’re in there even if I don’t agree with it.”

Deli reflected on some of the parade aspects he misses, as times changed and the town grew. “I was disappointed when we stopped running the parade both ways… it was so short.” He remembers the parade getting to the Four-way Stop and turning around to march back up Elk Avenue. “It was like a snake that ate itself because they would take it around the block and suddenly you’d run into the other people coming back up. But it just got too long. Pretty amazing that we’ve never had a real marching band in the parade. There’s been the boom box band from KBUT and RMBL sort of band with their kazoos, chanting, and pots and pans.”

Deli reflects the sentiments of most in this valley when he says, “The whole tradition and people are all so great.”

A procession such as we have needs an interpreter, a liaison between the audience and the crazies marching up Elk Avenue. Than Acuff took the reins of announcer in 2013 from Denis Hall, who had been injecting his own style of emcee for 30 years. “I have no idea why Denis picked me,” Than shrugs and smiles in an interview a year ago. “It was a surprise and an honor. I’ve announced at a bunch of sports events and I’m comfortable with a microphone in my hand. Denis was my Fourth of July emcee sensei and I think because I’m sober, he figured I wouldn’t totally screw things up.”

KBUT deejay Josephine Kellett offered to jump up there and co-emcee with Than and now the duo rocks the parade. “I thought it would be great to have a woman’s energy up there and she provides the necessary sass,” Than says, and describes his favorite thing about announcing. “Being a part of one of the longest standing traditions in Crested Butte and seeing the same people year in and year out, whether they’re visitors or locals cruising down Elk, either in the parade or in crowd.”

And then, there’s the Twinkies. “People throw Twinkies at me… I love Twinkies. I put them in my bike pack and eat them on a big ride,” he laughs.

After the parade, there’s a much anticipated and refreshing water fight at the west end of Elk Avenue where the Crested Butte Fire Department brings in the big guns and revelers bring out their arsenal of semi-automatic super-soaker blasters. There was a time when the water fights took place all over downtown but they’re now limited to the first block of Elk, so if you aren’t a water baby, it is recommended that you stay away from that area or be considered as fair game. If you’re going into Kochevar’s for the traditional high noon tequila shot, you’d better be speedy in getting through the tossed buckets of water, blasters and hoses.

Crested Butte’s parade and celebration are eccentrically different from anywhere else, mostly because of the community of locals who make the town as funky as it still is. It’s always been more of a carnival atmosphere, because we’re just a town inhabited by kids of all ages. It continues yearly, the youthful, rogue energy of a typical Crested Butte Fourth of July parade and rest assured, it’s not likely to go conservative in our lifetime or lose its wild innovative spirit, despite Vail’s purchase of the ski resort. So don your most independent spirit and head out into the streets. Go Fourth and enjoy!

Neighbors opposed, mayor thinks outside the parking lines

By Aimee Eaton

It took three hours last week for the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council to decide it was not yet ready to vote on whether a 146-space parking lot should be built in town above the intersection of Treasury and Emmons Roads.

The discussion, which included about 55 minutes of public comment, focused on: whether a parking lot was necessary; whether this parking lot in this location was necessary; the safety of the proposed lot; the integrity of the council; the character of the neighborhood; the purchase agreement between the town and the sellers of the land on which the parking lot is to be built; and what else could be done with the land if it was not used for parking.

The issue of the parking lot has been in the council’s purview since April 2017, when the town entered into contract with the owners of the Nordic Inn for purchase of the property. The cost of the parcel to the town was slated at about $1 million, with the purpose set as a parking lot.

What made the contract and the parking lot deal stand out was a concurrent plan by the Nordic Inn to renovate and expand its property. The parking lot contract came with a stipulation that if the town failed to approve the Planned Unit Development proposal for the Nordic Inn, which included the parking lot, it would mean the termination of the contract. It seemed odd to some that the town was taking part in a public-private deal, over which it ultimately would make the decision on whether to proceed.

Steve Mabry lives on Treasury Road in Mt. Crested Butte, and was in attendance at last week’s council meeting. He started his statement about the parking lot by saying he was not against the development of the Nordic Inn, but saw the parking lot and the manner in which it was coming to light as improper for a municipality.

“It has been an awkward process,” he said. “To have the parking lot lumped in with PUD, I felt like it was inappropriate, quite frankly.”

Michael Blunck, another Treasury Road resident, asked the council how it could be supportive of spending millions in public money for a project for which there had been no public support.

“Why are we thinking of spending $2.5 million for something the residents of the town aren’t really interested in pursuing?” he asked. “I’m sure that last week’s announcement of the Epic pass has led some in this room to believe that we need more parking. That will only be true if we have another epic winter. Then it will be a private entity creating more traffic, so maybe it’s the private entity’s job to fix its own parking problem,” continued Blunck.

Part-time resident Rich Saperstein took on the project as a whole, but focused heavily on what the parking lot would mean for the character of the community.

“Nothing has incensed me more than what is happening right now,” he said. “We’re the oldest community in the town and this council is going to vote tonight on whether to put a parking structure in our residential area. No plan shows exterior dimensions of the parking lot. My calculations have this as 48,000 square feet; it’s the same as a football field. Forty-eight thousand square feet of concrete. Thirty times the average footprint of our homes. You’re going to vote tonight to put a football-sized field of concrete in our backyard. We’re the oldest community in town and we don’t deserve to have a football field of concrete in our backyard.

“It violates any spirit of architectural design,” Saperstein continued. “We want a multi-family community, we don’t want a parking lot. Economics don’t support this deal. We’re in a slow decay. The ski industry has passed us by. What really surprised me most about this transaction is why isn’t there a public-private partnership. Why wasn’t there a negotiation with the mountain to secure some sort of partnership? I’m just not sure of the structure of this transaction. The fact that the town contributed $50,000 for the application but isn’t named on the application and remains an integral part of the deal is surprising to me. It sets a bad precedent. I request you vote no. Vote to find a better option. There are better options out there if parking is one of those things you feel you need to solve for.”

After public comment, town community development director Carlos Velado reminded the council that this was the second time it had seen the PUD document, and that it had passed with the Planning Commission in a 4-3 vote. Aaron Huckstep, the attorney representing the Nordic Inn and its owners, Pearls Management LLC, then spoke to the council.

“Now is the time to act,” Huckstep said. “The only thing worse than having a parking problem in a ski town is not having a parking problem. No one is going to come in and tell you to go buy a parking lot. They’ll tell you to build a rec center, but part of your role is to look at what the town needs now and in the future.

“We all ought to recognize that folks don’t like the location of this parking lot,” Huckstep continued. “You have been supportive of this parking lot from the beginning… I think you have a fundamental question: Do you act now to address a public need that the neighbors don’t believe exists but everyone else does, or do you kick the can down the road?”

Council member Danny D’Aquilla said he would not be supporting the PUD because he felt his concerns about the construction of the parking lot and necessary retrofits to the road had been ignored by the Pearls.

“At the last meeting I was very specific. The traffic study says turn lanes could be put in place,” he said. “We talked about filling in culvert and creating turn lanes. That’s not included in what’s being asked for us to approve, and I can’t approve this because it’s not in there. I also asked for the entrance to be there in the cul-de-sac and that’s not there either.”

Velado replied to D’Aquilla’s concerns. “What I recall was the turn lane was a recommendation of the Planning Commission,” he said. “It was determined that it was unattainable at this time due to conditions.”

D’Aquilla said that wasn’t good enough. “My recommendation tonight is to send it back to the Planning Commission and have it come into line better.”

Mt. Crested Butte mayor Todd Barnes then waded into the fray.

“From the public, this is obviously not a necessity,” he said. “However, they do want to see the Nordic succeed. In order for Nordic to succeed, that land needs to be bought. It makes sense that buying that land with Downtown Development Authority funds is a good idea. If the town buys it at this moment, a couple acres for a million seems like a good deal to me.

“I don’t want to say no to this project. I want to see the PUD succeed,” Barnes continued. “But does it have to be a parking lot? There’s a lot of negativity here and we’re tasked with making a decision. We could wait a few months when the snow melts and go walk the property, see what the character of the neighborhood really is … I would seek the middle ground here rather than having such division.”

Huckstep argued that because the original contract between the town and Pearls included a clause for the town to purchase back the parking lot and expand the Nordic Inn over the spaces, the Pearls might not be interested in selling if the land were not used for parking. It would require further discussion, he said.

“Throughout this process two things have become very clear,” Huckstep added. “No one has a problem with development. Second is nobody likes the parking lot. What I’m hearing you say is, let’s purchase the land now but take our time figuring out what to do with it. I would ask all of you to think about asking your staff to talk with the applicant about getting rid of the buy-back option. My client does not feel like the convoluted nature of this process has been their fault. We know there is a lot of angst over the parking lot. I’m trying to find a middle ground that allows my client to move forward and you to move forward.”

Mayor Barnes then suggested that further conversation beyond the night’s meeting was appropriate, to which Huckstep responded that it seemed like the town wanted unfettered control of the property. The council then voted unanimously to continue the discussion at its May 15 meeting.

Planning Commission approves PUD, DDA votes to expand boundary

By Aimee Eaton

A proposal to build a 150-stall surface parking lot off Treasury Road in Mt. Crested Butte is moving forward.

At its last meeting in February, the town Planning Commission voted 4-3 to recommend the planned unit development (PUD) that contains the details for both the parking lot and the renovation of the Nordic Inn to the Town Council.

The Town Council will hold a public hearing on the PUD, and will consider the recommendation by the Planning Commission, on Tuesday, March 20 at 6 p.m. in the Mt. Crested Butte council chambers.

There has been a fair amount of community opposition to the proposal, which has largely stemmed from concerns over safety, changes to the neighborhood’s character, a lack of perceived necessity for the parking lot, and landscaping.

To address some of these concerns, and to better fit the proposal with town guidelines, the Planning Commission sent eight recommendations for changes to the PUD to the council.

These included: a retaining wall shall be no higher than 15 feet; a pedestrian path/sidewalk shall be constructed; the upper Treasury Rd. (from intersection of Treasury and Emmons) to the parking lot entrance will be widened to town standard; the DDA guidelines will be modified within five years to accommodate the parking lot lighting plan and elimination of the landscaping requirements within the parking lot; a landscape plan shall be considered at Design Review; and a lighting shall also be considered during Design Review.

The Planning Commission also determined that the entrance for the parking lot should be located closer to the intersection of Treasury Rd and Emmons Rd., rather than across from the Ponderosa development as had originally been planned.

In addition to the vote by the Planning Commission, the Downtown Development Authority agreed last week to expand its borders to include the land on which the parking lot would be located. This change allows for the use of DDA funds in the purchase of the parcel from the property owners, Pearls Management, LLC. According to Mt. Crested Butte town staff, the change to the DDA boundary is contingent upon the approval of the PUD by the Town Council.

New way-finding signs for CB

By Mark Reaman

A new look to the directional signage in Crested Butte should begin to emerge next fall. Creative District coordinator Hilary Henry told the CB town council recently that the new signage would fit into the “character” of Crested Butte. The original idea was to install the signage this summer but the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) informed the town that they would have to do traffic control as part of the installation and town staff felt that would be too disruptive to busy summer traffic. So the plan is to wait until autumn.

The most noticeable signage improvements will likely be seen on Elk Avenue. Signs on Highway 135 must comply with Colorado Department of Transportation regulations but can still contain some local flair.

The so-called secondary directional signs will be installed on Elk Avenue and are meant to promote the town’s historic and creative districts. They will be more artistic in nature. They will help promote “wandering” in town and direct visitors to destinations and points of interest in Crested Butte.

A Crested Butte way-finding committee chose Margaret Loperfido of Sprout Studios and Keitha Kostyk of Blaze Associates as signage designers.

Some signs will have a “capstone” piece on top that reflects the town. The proposed primary signage design will feature replicas of the town buildings along with representations of Crested Butte Mountain and Mt. Emmons. The proposed secondary signage design will feature three representations of the town, including skiing, mining and wildflowers. Those elements will be included in forged iron brackets.

“We are trying to have a comprehensive system for way-finding,” Henry explained. “Signage can be pretty expensive so we are phasing this in over time.”

The town had budgeted $75,000 for the project and costs are anticipated to come in in that neighborhood.

“We are trying to create and enhance the identity of our town,” said community development director Michael Yerman. “The two towns, Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte have different visions for signage. We are trying to give a nod to history, skiing and wildflowers with this signage, for example.”

It is expected the new look could start to be installed after the summer busy season.

These days when things are slow, I can always write about the weather—or Brush Creek. I’ll write about the weather unless the Mt. Crested Butte council throws a big wrench into the process late Tuesday night…(which they did but we’ll have to take some time to figure out the ramifications of the tie ‘no’ vote after expressing major concerns with density.)

Tuesday was an actual day where it actually snowed most of the day. Not that any of it stuck on my car that was parked for hours, but at least there was white stuff falling from the sky. You gotta start somewhere and given that the “storm” was supposed to be blown out by mid-morning, it was nice to see winter weather through the office window—in winter. As Than asked, could we be going from a season of “Un” to a season of “Some?”

If the town of Crested Butte goes ahead and rents the Old Rock Jail at Second and Elk to the Gunnison County sheriff’s office as a north valley substation and the town of Mt. Crested Butte keeps all its officers on the police force, the north valley could be the most protected population on the planet. Throw in the state highway patrol officers who enjoy the upper valley and there’d be like a non-stop flash mob of men and women in uniform and marked cars roaming the lone highway north of Round Mountain.

If everyone who got on the town’s vacation rental waiting list follows through, the maximum cap set by the town will be just about right. Under the Crested Butte rules, right now 212 properties can be rented for short-term vacations and essentially 211 people have shown real interest. Not a bad outcome for Crested Butte’s new regulations.

A local businessman asked this week where all the community-saving flag bearers were with the Brush Creek issue, which he reckoned, if approved, would change the place more dramatically than a blue-tinted three-day party with free beer. He pointed to the loud, oftentimes bare-knuckled debates over Snodgrass, Whatever, and Mt. Emmons. But he felt bewildered that the standard pugilists who “always claim to be here to protect the future of their home” were pretty silent these days. It does seem like a different group of fighters (on both sides) are engaging in this latest community melee, or perhaps they have their eye on helicopters and roundabouts and bikes being allowed in wilderness.

As usual, there was a last-minute scramble to put together a Mardi Gras parade for Fat Tuesday. Believe it or not, Fat Tuesday is this Tuesday, February 13. It’s an early one this year. Now, most would admit that the glory days of a Crested Butte Mardi Gras parade were when Club Med was in town, along with the Brazilian crew working as lift ops. The parade was an international dance party that inspired beads and fire and fun. We can expect a more mellow Elk Avenue show these days, but hey, it’s Mardi Gras so come out, participate and get yourself some beads. The parade starts at 5:30 on Elk Avenue.

If a mellow parade doesn’t trip your trigger, and you feel the need to do just about anything to make it start really snowing, consider going to the darker edge with the new Crested Butte Heartless Ball this Saturday at the Talk of the Town. The poster is intriguing. Who doesn’t want to see “Gothic GoGo Dancers?” Who doesn’t like a party that starts at 10 and features horned women and Super Blue Blood Moon ritual kits? What could go wrong with a “Midnight Ritual (human) Sacrifice to Ullr”? Bloody drink specials and the advice to “Dress for a date…with Death” are all you need to know about where to be Saturday.

The promoters aren’t wrong when they say “We need snow” and it appears they are ready to go to any length to get it. So, thanks, and thanks to whichever local man gives it up so the rest of us can enjoy powder. Ahh…the little things.

—Mark Reaman