Guess this is better late than never!
To wrap up the 2017-2018 ski season, 36 members of Sanctuary ventured out to Crested Butte, Colorado to take part in their closing weekend festivities. To start our trip, we departed from O’Hare Airport, traveling to Denver, on United Airlines.
In Denver we ran into an issue with our connecting flight to Gunnison Airport; 4 seats on the plane were “Out of Order”, on a booked plane. Three of our members ended up volunteering to wait for a later flight and in the end it worked out fine; they took the travel vouchers and car-pooled to Gunnison with another passenger.
For the rest of us, we arrived in Gunnison without any issues, aside from being about 45mins later than expected, which cut into our grocery stop a little. Nevertheless our drivers were very accommodating, and worked with us to get drinks and groceries.
Gunnison airport was one of the smallest airports any of us have seen. After walking down the ramp from the plane, we headed inside to grab our luggage from the 1 bag claim check at the entire airport!
Our first chair lift pic .... at the airport.
After a short drive, we arrived at The Plaza Condos just outside Crested Butte Mountain Resorts (CBMR) base area. Here we stayed in their 3-bedroom/3-bathroom condos, which worked out perfectly. Ahead of the trip, The Plaza was able to coordinate with us on the bedding arrangements.
After everyone arrived, we headed up to the base area to attend the welcome reception hosted by CBMR. At the reception, we enjoyed drinks, ate cheese and crackers, and socialized with the CBMR staff.
After the welcome reception, several folks gathered at the Iron Horse, bar within our condos, for some dinner and late night drinks.
The snow conditions on this day were as expected for spring ski, a little slushy and thin in places.
Some Sanctuarians tearing it up off the Paradise Express Lift, a favorite of the weekend. Seemed to have the best conditions.
The temps were just above freezing with cloudy conditions for most of the day, turning to rain later in the evening.
Nevertheless, it was still a great day on the slopes.
And to top it off, they had a live polka band perform after our meal to celebrate the coronation of the Flauschink King & Queen. The Flauschink Festival is an annual Crested Butte tradition at closing weekend where they celebrate the 'flushing' of the winter weather in preparation for Spring.
We stumbled upon a Foosball table that started a 3 hour long tournament...
Ski Day Number Two – We Got Snow! Over night the rain had turned to snow, we received a couple of inches at the base (just enough to cover those thin spots) and 3-4 inches up top. The majority of the day was overcast, with a few light sprinkles of rain in the afternoon.
Many of us headed in early that day, to avoid the forecasted rain showers and to watch the pond skim contest!
Some folks made it across
And others weren't so lucky
After the pond skim festivities, several folks headed toward the hot tub and then out into town for the evening. A group of us enjoyed creative drinks at the swanky The Dogwood bar where Heather was a hostess.
Morning condo views on our last day at Crested Butte
Closing Day! – We Got Snow Again! Over 8-inches at the peak! We had a beautiful blue bird day.
It was a perfect day to close out the season
Later that evening on our last night, several of us gathered for a end of trip condo party. Folks brought their leftover food and booze to share and swap memories from the weekend.
Time to head home. We departed bright and early for Gunnison Airport, arriving a few hours before our flight. Unfortunately, the arrival of 35 people seemed to overwhelm the staff; check in took a bit longer than expected. We later came to find out that many of us were missing our bags, and that they never left Gunnison Airport. Despite this, we had a great trip home, and everyone received their missing luggage over the next few days.
Thank you everyone for making this one epic closing weekend! Anna & Dave
Credits:
Sanctuary Ski & Snowboard Club