6 feet of snowfall in 1 week forces Colorado ski resort to close
Excessive snow amounts of 6 feet in one week forced Crested Butte Mountain Ski Resort in Colorado to close.
Due to the intense rate of snowfall and density of the snow, conditions started to become unsafe for employees and guests, so an official call to close occurred on Monday, Jan. 9, 2017.
“I haven’t been able to find someone here who remembers this happening,” Erica Mueller, PR and communications manager of Crested Butte Mountain Resort, told AccuWeather.
Mueller's family has been in the ski resort industry for over 30 years and never had to shut down a ski area due to too much snow.
"We have received 90 inches in the last 10 days here in Crested Butte, with more in the forecast," Mueller said.
They were closed for about 31 hours. They had some delays in opening lifts due to avalanche mitigation work, but otherwise operations were back to running smoothly.
"It was getting to a point that we needed to do additional avalanche control work, some of our lifts were getting covered in ice, and it was becoming dangerous to even get around the mountain," Mueller said.
Their maintenance team started at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 10 clearing snow and ice from lifts to get them operating in time for a 9 a.m. re-opening.
"We also needed our lift operations crew to be there to run the lifts, and our ground crew had lots of snow to shovel and plow," Mueller said.
The area's total snow amount for this winter season is 204 inches, and snowfall has occurred on 45 days. Last year, the resort received 132 inches for the entire season.
Meteorologists noted that the amount of snow that fell in one week is unusual for the area.
"I would say a period of snow like they had would happen once every five years. No other winter in the past nine seasons, besides 2014, have had this kind of stretch of snow," AccuWeather Meteorologist David Samuhel said.
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"Each year is unique and poses different challenges. The past ten days, we have seen a very unusual storm which causes unusual events," Mueller said.
Guests have been understanding of the circumstances, Mueller said, and they are back to enjoying fresh snow.
"The skiing and riding yesterday [Tuesday] and today [Wednesday] with another 10 inches has been amazing," Mueller said.
Mueller is pleased with how smoothly operations ran during such a rare event.
"The skiing and riding are amazing and I am very proud of our team for all of their hard work and dedication to keep the mountain running as smooth as possible, given this historical storm," Mueller said.
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