Crested Butte

Crested Butte: green factor

• Introduction to green factor assessments
• Environmental overview of resorts
• Environmental initiatives

Major Initiatives

Since current owners Tim and Diane Mueller purchased Crested Butte in 2006, efforts have been ongoing to make CBMR a more energy efficient business and to be good stewards to the land. From open space protection to wind power, here’s how CBMR is making a difference.

Wind Power

CBMR’s has offset nearly one hundred percent of its energy consumption with wind power credits with all lifts and offices and most of its lodges and restaurants participating in the program. Additionally, Triple Peaks LLC (the parent company for CBMR) is also running Okemo Mountain Resort in Vermont and Mt. Sunapee Resort in New Hampshire on wind power credits as well. A total of 27,000 megawatts of power between the three resorts will be offset, with CBMR using 8,000 of those. The result is equivalent to 3,500 homes switching their power to renewable energy.

But CBMR is going above and beyond even that. An additional donation of 10% of the cost of their energy use will be used by the Colorado Governor’s Office of Energy Management and Conservation to fund the development of green power in the state.

This doesn’t mean that you will all of the sudden be seeing wind towers in Mt. Crested Butte. Rather, the purchase of the wind power units supports e-certified wind generation plants that are generally located in the mid-west. The money assures that more and more renewables are introduced into the national energy grid.

To put it in more tangible terms, it is like buying organic produce as opposed to conventional produce at the grocery store. The more you buy, the more available it becomes at a cheaper price.

“We should be a leader in the valley,” said Randy Barrett, CBMR Vice President and General Manager, “So that others may want to implement the same system on their own.”


Open Space

Customers of restaurants and retail operations at CBMR will have the opportunity to assure open space in the upper Gunnison Valley. Butte 66, Rustica, the Ice Bar, Paradise Warming Hut, Base Area Basics, On Mountain Basics, the General Store, The Woodstone, The Woodstone Deli, The Grand Lodge Gift Shop, the Atmosphere Restaurant and Elevation Station are all participants in the 1% for Open Space program.
With purchases at these participating locations, customers are given the option to donate 1% of the services provided to them to 1% for Open Space. Once collected, the program grants this money to requesting organizations for the protection of open space in Gunnison County. Through these non-profits, land has been preserved on the Woods Walk, the Lower Loop, the Rec Path, Washington Gulch, along the Slate River, and Kebler Pass, among others. So far, over 4,000 acres have been preserved through 1% for Open Space assistance.

Additionally, CBMR has donated 4% of its Prospect land sales to the Crested Butte Land Trust, a Crested Butte non-profit that works to permanently preserve open space land in the area.

Recycling

CBMR is upping the ante on its recycling efforts. Visitors will now find a more prominent recycling program throughout the resort, from cans and bottles that the public uses, to office paper and cardboard more predominately used by mountain operations.

But that’s not all, in the “deconstruction of the Gothic building,” construction materials such as beams were recycled back into use by re-milling them for other building projects. Kitchen equipment will find a new home at other food establishments on the mountain. Anything from toilets to light fixtures to the light bulbs themselves were carefully extracted to be used elsewhere.

Additionally, much of the construction materials that can not be reused will be ground on site and reused in the construction of the Cimarron building, predominately as backfill. This helps the environment in a number of ways. There will be less waste, a reduction on the use of new materials, and a decrease in the number of trucks being utilized to carry out construction waste. Material that is completely unusable will be mulched. By being used as a cover for the landfill, it will not only reduce the amount of waste being taken to the landfill, but will serve the extra purpose of coverage.

“We are working with a philosophy based on reuse, recycle and reduce,” explains John Sale, Director of Permitting and Planning.

The North Village – A Sustainable, Environmental Alternative

When CBMR began thinking about how to develop the 142 acres within Mt. Crested Butte that would eventually comprise the North Village, they knew they wanted to do something different. Planners envisioned a real town center, one that would retain its people and still grant access to the surroundings they came to enjoy. They saw neighborhoods with porches, an environment that encouraged walking, access to trails to Prospect and Snodgrass mountains, and a town center that served as home to a post office, town hall, a general store, and an annexation of the Crested Butte Library. Multiple forms of public transportation, including a gondola, would be easy and appealing to not only access the village’s amenities, but to also access the trail systems close by.

Employing Smart Growth Principles, this is exactly the feel the North Village will have. Additionally, building orientation and architecture will capitalize on passive solar gain and strive to incorporate green development design opportunities. Mixed land uses of retail ground floors and residences on top floors will contribute to the compact building design with the greatest density in the villages core and larger homes spreading out towards the periphery. With these planning principles in mind, all residents of the North Village will have greater access to the open space right outside their door.

The North Village will be a sustainable, environmental village using standards set by such organizations as Colorado Green Building and E-Star. Residents will be required to meet a certain amount of green building requirements given by one of these approved entities.

Prospect Homestead Goes Green

Prospect Homestead is a community housing development created in a joint partnership with the town of Mt. Crested Butte and CBMR. With special attention being paid to R values on insulation, design plans to maximize passive solar gain, radiant floor heating, solar thermal panels for domestic hot water and super insulated windows, the Prospect Homestead is helping to set the standard in community housing. With a goal of achieving an E-Star rating for the homes, CBMR is pushing the limit of housing provided to full-time residents and employees.

Outreach

To help with all of these exciting developments, CBMR has partnered with the Office for Resource Efficiency (ORE) to receive consultation from their experts on how to be a more energy efficient resort. ORE’s mission is to encourage energy and resource savings and development of renewable energy sources to help lower utility costs, decrease the emission of pollutants, and create a more sustainable economic and energy future for the Gunnison Valley community. As such, they have served as a valuable resource for CBMR as they move forward with their development plans.

Plans to green CBMR continue in all aspects of their development and planning. From assuring environmental standards are met with the new Red Lady Lodge and Mountaineer Square North, to helping to preserve open space, to powering their lifts with wind power, to creating paperless press kits, CBMR is putting one giant green step forward. And with Ethan Mueller himself serving on the ORE board, CBMR promises to continue to push the standard for energy efficiency in resort planning.

Since resorts are continuously increasing and improving their environmental practices, we update the Green Resort Guide throughout the year. If you have any information about new resort environmental policies/practices or anything that you think we may have missed, please email greenresortguide@skiclub.co.uk.

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