Skiing The Butte

Crested Butte Spring Pass Sale; Holds 2008/09 prices

Crested Butte Mountain Resort is selling 2009-2010 season passes at this year’s prices until April 5. Plus, you can use next season’s pass for the remainder of the 2008-2009 season. The offers are only good for on-line purchases.

Season Pass Financing Program

This summer Crested Butte Mountain Resort will be offering financing options for the purchase of all Platinum and Gold passes. For a $40 processing fee, CBMR will break your season pass purchase into four equal payments when you place your first payment by July 31st. Additional payments will be due on the last day of August, September and October.

Pass financing will only be available between June 1, 2009 and July 31, 2009. Financing will only be accepted with the use of a credit card on file.

Family Value Program

Receive one free child or young adult pass with every adult full season pass purchased. The Family Package includes one Adult Platinum or Gold pass and one pass of the same type for that adult’s legal dependent child, age 17 and under.

Platinum Pass

Platinum Passes provide unlimited skiing and riding with no blackout dates, and are valid for both the winter season and the summer season. If you purchase a Platinum Pass during the 2009 Spring Sale, you'll get lift access during BOTH the 2009 and 2010 summer seasons.

Buy your passes here

Ski In Ski Out At San Moritz

Check out the photos of the ski in ski out access:

Snowcat Driving Experience In Crested Butte

Crested Butte Mountain Resort, in conjunction with Prinoth the world's leading snowcat manufacturer, launches the Snowcat Driving Experience. Beginning March 7th, 2009, participants learn the basics of driving snowcats, grooming, pushing snow, and experience one of the best ski resort jobs on a closed course. The school incorporates initial classroom time for safety and operational instruction then students get out on the course to maximize the driving time.

Where Now: Crested Butte, CO

One of the West’s best skier’s mountains debuts new terrain, lodging and dining. And that’s just the beginning.

Cruising up the Silver Queen Express in steady snowfall, it’s hard not to be amazed by how steep and narrow Crested Butte’s terrain is. Off to the right are a handful of chutes like Peel and Banana Funnel. The latter is currently socked in by low-hanging clouds. But it’s there. I know because when you drive into town on a clear day, it’s the first thing you see—a tight gulley running down the mountain that gives this small town its name. And if steep and narrow aren’t enough, the mountain also throws in rocks—rather, boulders—trees and plenty of cliff drops. Even the bowls are narrow by most mountain standards. It’s no wonder the U.S. Extreme Skiing Championships are held here every year.

Crested Butte Mountain Resort is a mountain at the end of the line—there’s only one main road into the valley—with big yearly snow and challenging skiing. It’s set just a few miles from its laid-back town, which lacks the megaresort high-rises, Starbucks and chain restaurants. For years, the resort was operated like it was still the 1970s, waiting to be unearthed and polished. Then came Tim and Diane Mueller who, in 2004, purchased the resort and started injecting millions of dollars. (The Muellers sold Crested Butte to CNL Properties last year, but are still managing the resort.) They’ve retained the Butte’s roughhewn feel—just sanded the edges a bit.

Read the full story.

350 Foot Drop Off A Cliff

Unbelievable footage of Fred Syversen falling 351 feet off a cliff...

Fred Syversen was filming for Nuit de la Glisse while he unintentionally set the new cliff dropping world record. See Fred Syversen's 107 meters drop and listen to his thoughts after the drop.

Read more about Fred Syversen and his 107 meters (351 feet) drop here.

Going To Extremes

Even experts think twice in Crested Butte's high-risk race

Big-mountain freeskier Rex Wehrman remembers the exact moment he was scared away from competing ever again in the U.S. Extreme Freeskiing Championships at Crested Butte.

"I was taking a line through 'Body Bag Chutes' and wound up going off the final jump on one ski, with my other one behind me," said the two-time U.S. Extremes champion from Summit County. "As soon as I took off, I just thought, 'That's it. I'm never doing this again.' "

Wehrman, 38, managed to pull it together in midair and land the unforgiving 30-foot jump wedged between jagged rocks and thick timber, and even advance to the final round among the 2006 contest's elite the following day. But his heart was no longer in it. And that's no way to approach what may be the most difficult and dangerous in-bounds ski terrain in Colorado.

Wehrman now applies his extreme skiing expertise as a judge at the event, which celebrated its 18th anniversary Saturday.

Read the full story at the Denver Post.

Michelle Manning And Clif Bennett Win The Subaru US Extreme Freeskiing In Crested Butte

Fans came out in droves for the final day of the 2009 Subaru US Extreme Freeskiing Championships at Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR). The first stop on the 2009 Freeskiing World Tour (FWT), fifty athletes qualified for the final day in the Hourglass/Bermuda Triangle, an area off-limits to the everyday skier, but opened up for the final day thanks to the work of the Crested Butte Mountain Professional Ski Patrol. In the end, Michelle Manning and Clif Bennett both of Alta/Snowbird, Utah, would post the best-combined score to take the titles.

The Hourglass/Bermuda Triangle is a 1,000-vertical-foot drop with a sustained pitch of 40-degrees and reaching 60-degrees in several spots leaving skiers no room for mistakes. With no traffic in the area the entire season, competitors were treated to a mixed bag of conditions from soft powder, to bottomless, punchy holes and areas of completely bare rocks and trees.

Masters at Crested Butte

The North Face comp completes its second stop

Kicking off on the lover's holiday, February 14th, the second day of the Northface Masters at Crested Butte found competitors battling inclement weather, and each other, for a victory on the notorious "Staircase" slope.

Straight down from the start gate, riders had their pick of a skiers left area, "Staircase Proper," with a series of pillows called the "Handrail," and further left more pillows called the "Slot Cliffs." To the riders right sat a cliff-strewn apron called "Body Bag," with another nasty piece further right called "Dead End," and finally a cliff launch dubbed the "Cheese Burger." With death and food metaphors abound, and milk-bird conditions, both the men's and women's field laid down serious tracks in the first round of the finals, racing for a cut that left five women and fifteen men for the super-duper finals.

With the sun gracing the sky finally, the scent of BBQ-ing cow from The North Face Jimmy Hopper grill, and a crazed character named Spencer Moon wandering around with a pirate flag draped cape-style about his neck, the real action of the super-duper finals got under way.

Read the full story here: EXPN

Sunny Ski Day In Crested Butte

After two days of snowing, it was a full sunny ski day in Crested Butte today. Once you escaped the crowds of the Red Lady Lift (a ten minute wait - that's busy for Crested Butte!) and the Painter Boy area, it was reasonably clear on the lower slopes. There was a queue for the North Face lift and the Paradise runs were busy, but the East River area was great.

Red Lady Lift at 10am this morning - busy for Crested Butte!

Stop Two of The North Face Masters kicks off at Crested Butte

Day one went down on the Headwall area of Crested Butte, and riders didn't hesitate taking the rocky and scrappy slope apart.

The second stop on the North Face Masters series is popping off at Crested Butte, Colorado, and the tour couldn't have picked a better freeride mecca. Returning champs from the Snowbird comp, Shannan Yates and Matt Annetts are up against a national field of free-shredders that includes a huge portion of local talent.

The 'Butte has a revered place among big mountain types, capturing the interest of now pro-shred legends Chris Englesman, Dave Basterachea and Barrett Christy, among others. So, what's the deal?

"It's steep and it's rocky," answers 18-year local and fifth-place finisher in today's preliminary round Gareth Van Dk. "Crested Butte is a big volcano of shale. It's straight up daggers waiting to bite you." But besides the geological punishers, says Van Dyk, CB has the pitch to match.

Read the full story here: EXPN