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CRESTED BUTTE CONTINUES WITH MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR
RESORT-WIDE IMPROVEMENTS
The face-lift that began last year at Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) after CBMR's purchase by Tim and Diane Mueller is already in high gear. $80 million will be spent on the following improvements:
- Extensive landscaping at the base area
- Extensive brush cutting on ski trails including the Extreme Limits
- Prospect, Phase II
- A new base village, titled Mountaineer Square
- New chairlift
- A new state-of-the-art central reservation system for Crested Butte Vacations
- Upgraded and improved snowmaking
- Additional grooming machines
- A redesign of Kids' World
- A new on-mountain demo center
- New ski and snowboard rental equipment
- New uniforms
- A smoker on the deck of Butte 66
- A new deck at the Ice Bar & Restaurant
External Reconstruction
BSA Architects of San Francisco will sculpt Mountaineer Square. The first phase of construction will include approximately 93 resort residences, a spa and fitness center, a new bus depot, a water/fire pit plaza for social gatherings and some retail and restaurant facilities. Convention facilities will debut in December of 2006 for groups and meetings of up to 500 (700 theatre style).
Snowcat Drivers morph into Earth Movers
"We are turning into a construction company," says CBMR vice-president and general manager Randy Barrett. "Cat drivers will turn into backhoe operators. It is a wonderful to be able to offer year-round work to our employees."
The infrastructure for Prospect Phase II was installed this summer and includes utilities, roads and ski bridges. The Prospect development on the mountain's northwest side, which is the finest ski/in ski out community in the Rockies, broke breaking ground on "personal retreats".
Lifts
A new Poma fixed-grip quad chair lift was installed to replace the T-Bar lift. The quad chair will take skiers and riders staying in lodging near the south side of the base area to midway on the front side of the mountain. Future plans have this quad chair replacing the Peachtree lift and accessing a new adult teaching area and race venue. The re-grading of the Peachtree terrain will be completed by the 2006-2007 ski season.
Snowmaking and Grooming Enhancements
Crested Butte's commitment to grooming Colorado's Best Corduroy™ will only get better next winter. This past summer, snowmaking pipelines were replaced and more hydrants were added to upgrade the existing snowmaking operations.
"We will be able to efficiently create enough snow to open Red Lady Express, Silver Queen and Paradise (lifts) on opening day next winter (November 19, 2005), regardless of natural snowfall," says Barrett. "This would enable us to have top to bottom snowmaking on International, Paradise Bowl and Houston trails, some of the most popular skiing and riding on the mountain."
In addition to expanded snowmaking, CBMR will add three new Snowcats to the grooming fleet for the upcoming season. Operations will be expanded to include the nightly grooming of every blue and green run.
Internal Augmentations
Crested Butte Vacations (CBV) installed a new state-of-the-art booking system, the Inntopia CRS, for its call center technology this past summer. InntopiaCRS is a hosted, browser-based model that integrates the call center seamlessly with internet reservations at the reservation center's web site, GDS and IDS providers, allowing for greater distribution of inventory. The system also makes it easy for both agents and guests to dynamically build packages with lodging, activities and air.
Family Friendly
CBMR is becoming even more child-friendly. The Kids' corral has been upgraded with a longer and more user-friendly magic carpet. Parents can let the kids take a break from skiing at the new daytime tubing hill at the top of Painter Boy. The Kids' World crew is designing a Kids' Trail map that features children-only trails, fun zones and clubhouses. "If you win with the little ones, you win with the parents," says Barrett.
Finishing Touches
Base area landscaping to include trees and 55,000 ft. of sod has "greened" up the mountain over summer along with the re-siding of the resort's lift terminals and lift houses. Painter Boy and Goldlink lifts have received cedar siding to match the new look of the Silver Queen and Red Lady Express lifts. This winter, lift operators will don a new wardrobe of hunter-green Spyder uniforms to coordinate with the newly painted lift terminals.
Paradise Warming house will have a new on-mountain Salomon demo center located in a yurt where resort guests are able to upgrade or try out different equipment without returning to the base area. The yurt will also include a facility for guests to sign up for ski school lessons and clinics and watch their lesson videos.
The Crested Butte Ski and Snowboard Rental shop will be offering the largest selection of new high performance demo skis, boots, teaching skis and snowboard equipment in the county.
The popular Ice Bar will be even more welcoming with a larger, warmer deck complete with windbreaks and outdoor heaters. The deck of Butte 66 will now resonate with the smell of BBQ from a new outdoor smoker.
Trail maintenance is a top priority; intensive brush cutting and mowing work on the mountain's trails included the "Extreme Limits".
The upgrades are all part of the Muellers' mission to make CBMR more family-friendly, guest oriented and aesthetically pleasing. "We want to raise the bar again." says Barrett. "We want to continue to ensure that we deliver the best product we can."
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Real Estate in the Crested Butte Valley
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