{"id":11321,"date":"2014-11-09T22:38:29","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T04:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/?p=11321"},"modified":"2018-12-07T16:36:50","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T23:36:50","slug":"interview-andy-eflin-growing-son-founder-crested-butte-ski-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/interview-andy-eflin-growing-son-founder-crested-butte-ski-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Andy Eflin – Growing up as the son of the founder of Crested Butte ski area"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Eflin has his roots deep-set in the town of Crested Butte. His dad, Dick Eflin, began the ski area in 1961 along with his friend Fred Rice. Andy was born that same year, and grew up surrounded by skiing and nature. With a father that greatly influenced the Crested Butte Community, Andy has become an influencer himself. Here\u2019s Andy Eflin\u2019s story, in his own words.<\/em><\/p>\n

Growing up in Crested Butte<\/strong>
\nWhen I was born in Crested Butte in 1961, there were about 300 people who lived here. There was only one other person born in Crested Butte the same year as myself and that was Karen Ruggera. There were only two of us. We were the same age, of course, and in the same class. So, it was only the two of us for 4 yrs in the Community School. School was in the building that is the Town Hall now. We went kindergarten through 8th in that building and then to Gunnison for high school. Growing up here, we kind of battled for staying in school in Crested Butte through 8th grade because RE-1J school district wanted us to go to Gunnison because we had such a small crowd. Before and after I made it through 8th grade, there were kids that had to be bussed down to school in Gunnison in 6th grade. A lot different nowadays! Classrooms are packed and kids are being born, and all the rest.<\/p>\n

\"Andy<\/a>
Andy Eflin as a child in Crested Butte in the 1960’s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I grew up on 1st and Sopris for the first 8 yrs of my life and we used to walk to school. We had mornings that we\u2019d walk to school and we\u2019d try to cut in between the Wooden Nickel and the Liquor Store. We\u2019d get stuck in there and couldn\u2019t get out because our boots were stuck in the snow. And we\u2019d show up to school in our socks. The teacher was all freaking out and my parents were mad at us because we lost our boots.<\/p>\n

The kids that we grew up with – they were all like your brother or your sister.<\/p>\n

When we had big snows, they\u2019d come in with the grater with a snow-blower hooked on the front of it. They\u2019d cut these banks kind of like they do now and they\u2019d be really hard-capped on the top so we\u2019d walk along the top.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In school, we\u2019d ski every Wednesday, for most of the day, during the winter. During the first ski of the year, you\u2019d have your ski school guys directing which group you\u2019d end up in. By the time we were in 7th or 8th grade we were all in the best group. It was always pins and needles which group you\u2019d get put in.<\/p>\n

My brother and I kind of grew up on the mountain because my parents worked here. When the old warming house was here we\u2019d spend all day there. When we got tired of skiing we\u2019d be horsing around in the restaurant.<\/p>\n

Town was Different Back Then<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s funny, you look at pictures of town back in 1961, and all the trees are much smaller. The town is much more beautiful today than it was back then because so many trees have been planted and have grown. Before that, it just wasn\u2019t a concern of the miners. They just didn\u2019t plant a lot of trees. They were meant to be a boom and bust towns. Now, you can go up any of these valleys and there\u2019s hardly any signs of towns that were once 4000 people. It\u2019s more beautiful today for sure. The side streets were all dirt. The only thing that was paved was the main drag. There weren\u2019t any restaurants open during off-season \u2013 even when I was in college. You\u2019d be lucky if the Wooden Nickel was open during off-season. Nowadays, you have lots of choices. Teo is always open. Pitas is always open.<\/p>\n

Some of the restaurants are still around but they\u2019ve changed. Bacchanale is still called the Bacchanale but it\u2019s changed owners. In middle school we used save our money to go to the Bacchanale and have strawberry crepes for desert. Now, the Last Steep is in that space that used to be the Bacchanale. Power House had a long run but they\u2019re not around anymore. Donita\u2019s has been around forever. When I was growing up, their spot was the Way Station. My friend\u2019s mom worked there. I don\u2019t know how long it was the Way Station but that\u2019s what I remember it as. There was a fire in that building. It used to be a big hotel I believe.<\/p>\n

There were some other restaurants that burned down. Frank & Gals burned down, Sanchos, and some others too. I remember in middle school, looking out the window, and I could see flames leading up from the center of town. And one of those restaurants burned to the ground right by the post office.<\/p>\n

It was all volunteer fire departments back then. My dad was on the volunteer fire department way back in the day when I was really little. Their claim to fame was that they\u2019d had however-many fires and hadn\u2019t saved one yet! They would show up to put the fire out, hit the fire hydrant, and all the pipes would be frozen. People knew there was a fire because they would hit the alarm. You can still hear it today \u2013 the noon siren. If you heard that siren and were on the volunteer fire department you\u2019d be bookin\u2019 it toward the fire.<\/p>\n

\"Andy<\/a>
Andy Eflin enjoying the outdoors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Beginning of a Ski Area<\/strong>
\nThere was a J-bar that ran right beyond the now-Silver Queen Lift. See the little steep part that comes back from Peach Tree? Kind of by the zip-line now. There was a little thing called a J-bar and that\u2019s what I learned to ski on. Only one person could ride it. There was no spring and there was no rope so when that thing hit you it hit you hard. And if you were a little kid, like I was, it would just pick you right up off of the snow. You\u2019d kind of go sailing up the ski hill. The J-bar was the bunny slope. And the West Wall Lift was a t-bar. They did racing for the college on it. That was actually \u201creal\u201d skiing! And it was actually the first lift.<\/p>\n

The second winter, in 1962, they put in the gondola up the old lift line. In the summer of \u201962, My dad was driving around promoting the resort and showing movies of this gondola running that hadn\u2019t even been installed yet. They were still working on it! I think they finally got that thing running in November or December of 1962. It went all the way up to the top, ending at the upper terminal at the ski patrol shack. It took 12 or 15 minutes \u2013 pretty much the same as now. It was an Italian 3-seater that was detachable \u2013almost as fast as a high-speed quad. You had to take your gear off and it only took 3 people. The clamps that would attach back on to the cable weren\u2019t always the best so sometimes there would be a gondola that would slide. My mom has the story of one gondola that was in front of her that was empty sliding toward the one that she and my brother were in. She pushed my brother out the window and she jumped and landed on International. She ended up getting whiplash that bothered her for years. Rich was fine \u2013 he ended up landing in the powder. My dad was like, \u201cWhy did you jump out? You should have rode it and you would have been fine.\u201d She said, \u201cWell, I didn\u2019t want our gondola to fall off.\u201d She didn\u2019t know. The thought of falling off with a gondola was worse than jumping out the window. But, they kind of had a key. So, when you got in the gondola they kind of locked you in there. So, it wasn\u2019t really easy to open the gondola from the inside. So, I think they went out the window. The operator at the top was all shocked when the two gondolas came up to the top touching one another \u2013 the first one empty and the second one had skis on it but no people.<\/p>\n

You could take the gondola up and ski into Paradise. You could ski Paradise Bowl and come out Yellow Brick Road. There was no skiing below that back then.<\/p>\n

My dad was an architect by trade and he designed the original mountain. He designed all the trails on the upper mountain. They used to sit around at parties and name them. He designed future drawings of what Paradise would become and drawings of Upper Park.<\/p>\n

The warming houses were really small. They were just real steep-roofed. The roofs almost went right to the ground. They were almost like A-frames. I just remember the old Paradise warming house and how packed it would get because it was so small. The building that\u2019s there right now is just such an improvement.<\/p>\n

The Growth of the Ski Area<\/strong>
\nI think the next lift after the gondola was where the Red Lady is now. It was a two-seater an it was fixed and was called the Keystone Lift \u2013 named after the Keystone mine. It had two get-offs\u2026. Two stops.<\/p>\n

My dad sold his part of the ski area after 8 years. His partner, Fred Rice, realized that the land was going to become valuable. So, he wanted to buy my dad out and sell the land. When they started the resort, they bought 600 acres here at the base area. It was what you see. Fred was having trouble buying my dad out, so he ended up giving my dad land. That was a pretty cool deal for my dad. He sold it over the next 20 years. I don\u2019t know how far his land went exactly. But, those lots behind the Nordic Inn, those were some of the lots that by dad owned. He ended up with a couple of business sites. He used one of those business sites as collateral to build the Artichoke \u2013 which is now the Avalanche.<\/p>\n

Fred owned the resort for awhile. But, Fred ended up passing away at a fairly early age \u2013 in his early 40\u2019s. And then the banks took over for awhile \u2013 maybe 5 years. My dad and I were talking and we think that the Keystone Lift was actually put in by the banks. Then, the Calloways and the Waltons (Ralph Walton and Bo Calloway) bought the resort from the banks.<\/p>\n

Each owner of the ski area has brought something different. The current owners have had their own unique perspective because they started a ski area out East. The Waltons and Calloways were instrumental in getting the town bus going and pioneered the \u201cAirline Guarantee Program\u201d \u2013 the first one for any ski area in the state. They owned it the longest and did most of the expansions.<\/p>\n

College Days at the ski area were a lot of fun. They would happen in March. It was in the spring and put on by Western. They would always have a fun competition on some sort of kicker. When you ride the Queen up here, and especially on the old lift line, and you crossed the road coming back from the t-bar, between that road and the top of the ridge, there\u2019s that real steep slope. You can follow the old lift line, do that dip, and go sending it right off that nose. People would be partying like they do for the Al Johnson, and people would be jumping, and others would be climbing up into the trees watching people sail off that thing. I literally saw people go off that jump and then land on the road coming back from the t-bar. They\u2019d jump the whole thing. And, of course, people would be wearing costumes \uf04a<\/p>\n

All the extreme skiing that started here in Crested Butte was a hike before there was a lift. Even in 1990 and 1991 people were still hiking to the headwall. There was no High Lift. The hike was a boot pack right above the patrol shack following basically the current High Lift lift line. When we used to do the North Face, you used to come in on the road that comes in from the bottom of the Head Wall. You would just hike all the way up that to the Notch entrance.<\/p>\n

A Father with Many Trades<\/strong>
\nMy dad was initially involved with the resort only for about 8 yrs. After he was done with that, he did a lot of different things. One of the things my parents did is they ran the Princess Theater, which is now the Princess Wine Bar. That has an angled floor and they used to run the movie house every night for a few years. My brother and I would walk over from the house and watch the Bugs Bunny cartoon and then go home and put ourselves to bed.<\/p>\n

We moved out to the Steakhouse later, which is the first house on the right on the Lower Loop. I lived there for 5 or 6 years and my parents ran the Steak House . The Steak House was restaurant that served chicken, steak, and biscuits. That was kind of an adventure place to live for sure. I used to go on Peanut Lake all the time, I used to build rafts. I used to float the river, snorkel the river. We used to put in with a tube and my parents used to pick us up an hour later at the cemetery.<\/p>\n

My dad was in partnership with Bill Allen owned the Artichoke for 10 years. They build the building and expanded it at least once or twice. Eventually, they sold to Jeff Hermanson. Pete Schue then bought it and made it the Avalanche, which it\u2019s called today. Then Todd Barnes, who owns the Avy now, bought from Pete.<\/p>\n

The Origin and Evolution of Eflin Sports<\/strong>
\nI was gone from Crested Butte for about 10 years \u2013 during the time when mountain biking really began to take off. During that time, I went to college in Durango and got a business degree. Then, I ended up working for a company named Sports Stalker up in Steamboat. Within a year and a half I had my own store and was a store manager and stayed as a store manager there for about four and a half years.<\/p>\n

I have a long history in ski retail industry. I actually did work programs even as far back as 8th grade. I worked for Coal Creek Sports which is where Big Al\u2019s is now. And during college I worked for a ski shop in Durango called Alpine Sports.<\/p>\n

Somewhere around 1989 my dad was speaking with Ralph Walton and Ralph said they wanted to be out of the retail business. At that time the store building was still fairly brand new \u2013 no more than 2 yrs old. CBMR had a shop here called the Colorado Ski Company. They decided they wanted to stop competing with themselves because they had the big rental shop over in the Gothic Building. I was working for a company called Sports Stalker up in Steamboat when my dad and I started talking. And I said, yeah, I would love to go into business with you. So, we had this talk with Ralph Walton and he said he wanted to get out of the retail business. My dad said, well, we\u2019d like to be in it. So, we ended up buying Colorado Ski Company from CBMR and naming it Eflin Sports. So, I started the shop as a partnership with my dad in this exact location in June of 1990. We put in the repair shop, put in the lockers downstairs, ordered a rental fleet, & retail merchandise. We owned it for 12 years and we experienced anywhere between 15 and 25% growth each year until the recession hit. Skier days were decreasing and we still had a lot of product, but slower in business. We\u2019d opened a store in Gunnison right before the recession that wasn\u2019t doing well because the business model we\u2019d used up here didn\u2019t work down there. We started making frequent trips to the bank. Right around 2000, we decided we wanted to make some money. My dad said, \u201cthe only time I\u2019ve ever made money off of anything is when I sold it\u201d. Well, one day, I was busy in my office (in the CB store), and some guy named Ken stopped in the store and asked to see me. It ended up being Ken Gart. He said he\u2019d been looking at our space for over 5 years and said he was interested in buying it. When we finally sold it in 2001, I had a lot of people ask me if I was going to retire. I was like, \u201cRetire now, are you kidding me?\u201d It\u2019s not like we made a lot of profit. We just got out from under our debt.<\/p>\n

For two years, we still operated under the name of Eflin Sports. Then, one winter I think we were named Eflin Peak Sports and then finally just Peak Sports. It took about 4 years to transition the name. We\u2019ve been Peak Sports ever since.<\/p>\n

I took a 40% cut in pay and started working for the new company. At the time, the company was called SSV- Specialty Sports Venture \u2013 and was owned by Ken and Tom Gart, sons of the \u201cGart Brothers\u201d dad, combined with 55% Vail Resorts. SSV had a buyout clause from Vail, and two years ago Vail bought out the last 25% of SSV. So, now Peak Sports is 100% owned by Vail Resorts \u2013 Vail Resorts Retail.<\/p>\n

Going back to the Gunnison store, the Garts did not want to buy that location. So, there was kind of a strange dynamic there for about 3 yrs until we got that one sold. I was running Peak Sports, but still owned the shop in Gunnison. I had a guy down there running it for me, but I was doing a little bit of juggling between the two. We sold the Gunnison shop in 2003. The shop was at Denver and HWY 135. Most recently it was called Dixon\u2019s rental. Now it\u2019s Hartman Brothers.<\/p>\n

The Story of Eflin\u2019s Way<\/strong>
\nI was sittin\u2019 around thinking that down in Steamboat Buddy Warner has a run named after him. I thought gee that would be pretty cool if my dad could get a run named after him too \u2013 and he could find out about it before he passes away. So, I asked Ethan Mueller what he thought of the idea. Ethan said, \u201cLet me talk with the family.\u201d Ethan came back and said, \u201cWe like that idea. So, why don\u2019t you come up with some names?\u201d So my kids, my employees, and I kind of shot some names around. I sent Ethan a list of names and he ended up picking Eflin\u2019s Way. Ethan asked which trails we thought would be good to rename. I gave him 3 choices: Treasury which would be hard to rename because it\u2019s one of the longest trails on the mountain, Keystone since it was one of the trails he designed, or North Star because my dad likes to take people skiing there. I thought North Star would be perfect because it\u2019s kind of a newer name and it would be a short trail to rename. But, now there still is a North Star. They only renamed the upper part of it Eflin\u2019s Way. So, we got two trails out of one!<\/p>\n

\"Andy<\/a>
Andy Eflin loves snowboarding in Crested Butte.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking toward the Future<\/strong>
\nHaving a new twist is always good and that\u2019s why I\u2019m a huge advocate for single track trails from Crested Butte all the way to Gunnison. That would be something new \u2013 a new amenity that would make ripples. That kind of think could bring Europeans over here. Other things, like maybe that expansion on the back of the mountain \u2013 Teo 2. It includes both intermediate and extreme skiing. And I think that\u2019s awesome. (Note: A week after this interview, CBMR announced its intentions to open Teo 2 this winter, if conditions permit.)<\/p>\n

There are a lot of problems expanding our mountain. So, I think we need to look at what we have and make it better. For example, why isn\u2019t there a lodge of some sort on top of the Silver Queen? All it needs to be is a small little restaurant with a big deck. I think it needs to be on the top of the Peel. It needs to be a little well-done cabin that you could just ski over to and from on a nice green trail. Of course, it be kind of hard to get that approved through the Forest Service and probably pretty expensive. But, I\u2019ve been working here for 24 years and in the summertime, how many people have asked me, \u201cSo what do you do when you get to the top of the lift?\u201d I wish I could tell them that if they\u2019re not in shape enough to hike to the top of the peak, then they could go have lunch or a cup of coffee or a beer on the deck of this commanding view. It would be awesome. You could kill two birds with one stone \u2013 summer and winter use. It doesn\u2019t need to be fancy. Hot dogs and fries would be good enough. It doesn\u2019t need to be expensive, just a cool little spot.<\/p>\n

I view skiing as a pseudo-clean industry when you compare it to mining, oil, refining, and things like that. People would argue to death that skiing is not a clean industry but the fact that there are bears and deer and lots of other wildlife on this mountain that live there, shows that skiing is certainly better than some things. A lot of people don\u2019t get to experience the outside until they come to a place like this and they\u2019re like, \u201cWow, this is what nature\u2019s like!\u201d<\/p>\n

I think the ski area should be preparing for a greener future as far as operating the lifts, doing more recycling, or any of that kind of stuff. The fossil fuels aren\u2019t going to last forever. That is what our ski area should be thinking about.<\/p>\n

If you could ever invent a lift that was solar-powered\u2026 now that would be quite an invention. And that would really carry skiing into the future. Now, our lifts are already run electrically. So, maybe something like this is not that far out of reach \u2013 if it could be powered even partially by solar-electric. Maybe there could be a solar farm somewhere in this county that gets huge sun.<\/p>\n

It would be awesome if the dream could happen \u2013 trade a mine for skiing \u2013 on Red Lady with a lift right outside of Crested Butte. How nice would it be if you could get rid of the miners forever by putting a ski area on it? They could buy out the mining claim, put a lift up, and then have access gates into Redwell Basin that are unpatrolled.<\/p>\n

Looking Back<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s been great growing up in this valley. I wouldn\u2019t trade my growing up here for anything. We did a lot of hiking and backpacking and camping. I thought it was awesome growing up in this place. And I still love it to this day. I hope to keep making a living in this valley for a long time.<\/p>\n

Want to Learn More?<\/strong>
\nUpdated October 2018:<\/em> Frank later interviewed Andy for his podcast, “Crested Butte is Home”. To hear that episode please Looking Back<\/strong>” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>visit this page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andy Eflin has his roots deep-set in the town of Crested Butte. His dad, Dick Eflin, began the ski area<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crested-butte","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11321"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435539,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11321\/revisions\/435539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}