There’s a saying around Crested Butte that people move here for the winters but end up staying for the summers.  Ultimately, most of us came here to ski but the summers are so phenomenal and such the polar opposite (a polar winter indeed!) of winter that it becomes the reason why a lot of us stay finally grow some roots and stay ‘year round’.  But after a few years of powder days and wildflowers, locals have a tendency to label Fall as their favorite of the seasons.  The streets are sparse, it’s nice and cool, and the hue of changing foliage adds a glow to the outdoors. Remember, aspen aren’t the only thing that changes color up here:

This is the time of year that Suki blends right in with the grass. Although a slower season in Crested Butte, the Fall is a fantastic time to visit and go climbing or biking. Although bring your layers! You never know when that snow is going to come!

It’s an eternal question that haunts most of the locals around here; ‘When is it going to start snowing?’. As a special promotion this year, Crested Butte Mountain Guides is offering a ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ coupon for the first person who best guesses when our first measureable amount of snow accumulates in Crested Butte. We are qualifying the said amount as “at least a 1/2 inch on the Guide Shack Bench”.

You can either call our office (970-349-5430) to place your guess, or register online. No charge for entry, one guess per customer please, and if multiple people win on a set day, final winner will be chosen by lottery. Buy One Get One Free coupon entitles winner to a 2-fer for any winter trip (backcountry skiing, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, ice climbing, hut trip or avalanche course) in the 2009/2010 winter season. Sorry, Haute Route trip will not be included in this promotion.  Don’t miss your chance to get a great winter coupon.  Get your guesses in–It could snow any day!  Follow our weather on our Current Conditions Page.

This past weekend Crested Butte Mountain Guides successfully ran another completely full WMI of NOLS Wilderness First Responder (WFR) Recertification Course under beautiful sunny skies and warm weather. WMI of NOLS Instructors and CBMG Guides Jayson Simons-Jones (WEMT-Basic) & Billy Rankin (WEMT-Basic), had a typical mix of 29 folks for this course, that came from around CO, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona to enjoy a beautiful late summer weekend in Crested Butte, CO, and brush up on their wilderness medicine skills.

The WFR Certification is the standard medical training to be had in anyone working in the outdoor industry as a professional, be it a guide, outdoor educator, scientist, or gov’t field officer.  The original WFR Training Course is a 9 or 10-day affair covering the entire spectrum of emergency medicine in a wilderness scenario. Students learn to assess a variety of injured patients from major trauma related injuries, to more subtle environmental and medical injuries. They learn how to improvise splinting materials, shelters, and litters based on the limited amount of gear available to them on a wilderness excursion, dealing with various environmental challenges to injured folks from cold, rain, darkness, and altitutde, and how to stabilize seriously injured patients and organize and carry out an evacuation.

This training is intensive but thorough and neccessary and any outdoor career oriented individual worth their weight in professionalism will have this certification at the least.  Every 2-3 years this certifictaion must be re-tested and re-taught so individuals stay fresh and up to speed on the latest in wilderness emergency medicine techniques and skills.

Both Billy & I have been teaching these courses and various others for WMI of NOLS for many years, and always have a ton of fun, as the curriculum is interesting and fun to teach and being in a  room with 29 other outdoor professionals for 3 days is always inspiring and enjoyable. Thanks everyone for a fun course in an incredible setting, and congrats on all 29 folks successfully gaining a recertifictaion for another 3 years on their Wilderness First Responder Training. 

–Jayson (CBMG Owner/Guide & WMI Instructor)