If you spend any time skiing Crested Butte Mountain Resort at all, you've almost certainly seen ROMP skis, and probably a lot of them, in the lift lines. Brothers Morgan and Caleb Weinberg grew up in the mountains of New Hampshire doing all the things we love to do here in the Gunnison valley, like mountain biking and skiing. Both of them attended …

Aaron Blunck was born to ski. His grandfather started the ski school here in Crested Butte, his mom was a longtime instructor, his dad loves to ski, and Aaron had to keep up with his big brother somehow, too. By 8 he and his brother were skiing on their own, equipped with cheap radios to call home in case they needed to. Aaron was always into jumps…

Corey Tibljas spent most of his childhood growing up right here in Crested Butte, as one of the first graduating classes at what was then the new Community School. It was there, at the school, that he and his friend Ben Somrak decided to make a ski movie and start their company, Two Plank Productions. Thanks to the help of local film makers Matchst…

Shamai Buckel grew up in Southern Colorado as well as Santa Fe, New Mexico and went to Western Colorado University after a powder-filled ski trip to Crested Butte convinced her that this was the place to be. Joe Buckel's journey to the Gunnison valley from Indiana took a little longer, with a short stint in Denver. But they found each other and eve…

Lucille Lucas grew up in New York City, with parents that were deeply immersed in the art world. That meant that she was able to meet artists like Salvador Dali and others, and Lucille began practicing her own art at a young age as well. But a trip across the country proved to her that NYC wasn't her place- the smaller and slower life in the rural …

Craig Hall grew up in the Southeast Colorado town of La Junta, but often visited the Gunnison and Crested Butte area to ski and fish. After graduating with a forestry degree from Colorado State University, Craig headed to Crested Butte to ski. He was part of a small group of skiers that were heading out into the backcountry and started to learn the…

Jay Prentiss grew up on the East coast, and like many of the other people I've interviewed, his first visit to the Gunnison Valley was as a freshman at Western Colorado University. Already an outdoor athlete, he's taken advantage of all the Crested Butte area offers- climbing, kayaking, skiing, mountain biking and more. One of those passions is mou…

Jake O Connor grew up in Colorado, enjoying the outdoor lifestyle and building houses as he grew older. In his final year at CSU in Fort Collins, Jake suffered a spinal cord injury at a jobsite, but mere months later, he returned and earned his construction management degree. He went on to a successful career, even building a "floating casino" in K…

Stevie Kremer was born in Germany, but moved to Connecticut with her family before she was 1 year old. Her life on the CT shore, not far from New York City, was typical- golf, tennis, etc, before heading to Colorado College in Colorado Springs. It was while attending CC that she was introduced to Crested Butte and fell in love with the place, as so…

Kyleena Falzone is originally from Buffalo, New York. From a young age, she knew she wanted to work in the restaurant business, and that only intensified after a visit with relatives in Sicily, Italy, who owned a restaurant there. For several years, Kyleena would work in restaurants from Vail to the Hamptons, learning as much as she could about the…

Derrick Nehrenberg grew up in 30 different places, although most of them were in the Southeast. After high school, he attended college for a year and sold books in the summer. He was known to drive a bit fast at his summer job, however, and therefore a judge suggested a stint in the military (and yes, it's as good of a story as it sounds). So the m…

Jenny Stillo grew up in warm sunny Honduras, playing on the beach and studying in both English and Spanish at the American school. For college, she ended up at Western Colorado University in Gunnison, which was trying to attract more international students at the time. Despite the cold weather and cultural shock, Jenny liked the area and stayed aft…

Scott Williams grew up in a number of places, including Reno, Nevada, where he used to ski. But it was when he was in Southern California during the 1984 summer Olympic games that he was introduced to field hockey, a moment that would change his life. Scott took to the sport quickly and was able to train with some of the best Americans in the sport…

Alan Bernholtz grew up in sunny Los Angeles, California and unsurprisingly took to surfing. Certain aspects of the surf scene didn't appeal to him however, so at 18 he packed up moved to Aspen. But Aspen never felt like the friendly community he was looking for, and a chance visit to Crested Butte convinced Alan to move here. After a few other jobs…

Arvin Ramgoolam was born in Trinidad and Tobago- I was fairly certain that those islands are just off the coast of Venezuela, but it took a Google search to confirm it. From there, he emigrated to Miami and yet somehow, he still found his way to Crested Butte (don't worry, it's a good story that you'll hear). An opportunity to open a coffee shop wi…

Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association Executive Director John Norton grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, where he played the "typical" ball sports like football. At Dartmouth College, he met his future wife, an accomplished and avid skier, so he knew he better learn how if he wanted to stick with her. Today, it's one of his favorite things to do, but h…

Andy Sovick grew up in the foothills West of Fort Collins, CO. He had dreams of becoming a "mountain man" when he was growing up, but instead attended Fort Lewis college in Durango, where he met his wife. After graduation, he decided to walk back to Fort Collins with skis on his back. His wife was offered a job at the old Crested Butte Academy, whi…

Debra Callihan has deep roots here in the Gunnison Valley. She was born here while her father was at Western Colorado University, which Debra also attended. Even when her husband was Colorado's Lieutenant Governor, they tried to spend as much time as they could here, rather than in Denver. Don't worry- we don't talk about politics too much, though …

Noah Wight is my guest on this episode of the Crested Butte is Home podcast. Noah spent some of his youth at the hippy hamlet of Ward, located west of Boulder, Colorado, before moving to the East coast. He eventually made his way back to the University of Colorado and eventually Crested Butte. Noah has been the owner of Crested Butte's television s…

The tables are turned on this week's episode, with Frank Konsella becoming the interviewee rather than the interviewer. We start off talking about where I grew up, in the foothills above Golden, CO. Like many of my guests, I grew up ski racing at Winter Park, so when it came time to find a place to live, I naturally chose somewhere with great skiin…

Growing up in the midwest, Stephanie Ballard jokingly described her favorite pastime as "picking tar out of potholes with sticks". All kidding aside, she actually had a talent for volleyball and went to school in Charleston, South Carolina. Her dream of being an interior designer was on hold for a little while after college, while she successfully …

Tanith Martinez grew up at the Orvis Hot Springs between Ridgway and Ouray, Colorado. On a trip to Alaska, she watched a pilot land a bushplane nearby and decided that's what she wanted to do. After high school, she immediately started working towards getting her pilot's license at Northwest Colorado Community College. By the time she was finishing…

Eric Larsen grew up in Wisconsin, where he loved to be outside and come up with his own adventures in his backyard. That desire to be outside and explore has continued to this day. Eric is a professional explorer, and has led trips to the North Pole, South Pole, Mount Everest, Greenland and more. Eric continues to come up with new ways of exploring…

Wendy Fisher grew up skiing in Northern California with her family and quickly learned to love the sport. She began racing and excelled at it- so much so that she ended up at Burke Mountain Ski Academy in Vermont and the U.S. Ski Team. In 1991 she won the overall title at the U.S National Alpine Championships right here in Crested Butte. The follow…

Brittany Konsella is one of the Crested Butte area's most accomplished athletes, and I probably could have done multiple episodes with her, rather than jamming it all into one episode. She's also a big fan of setting goals, and we talk about many of them in this interview. She is one of just two women to climb and ski all of Colorado's 14,000' peak…

Randy Felix has held a number of fascinating jobs over the years. An interest in climbing led to several years of "rigging" ropes. One example of rigging would be safely placing chainlink fence over a cliff that threatens a highway below. He also traveled the world setting up the ropes for adventure races, connecting desert towers with ropes for th…

Brian Riepe starting racing mountain bikes professionally back in the early days of MTB racing. Once his career in MTB racing started to end in the late 1990's, he managed Colorado Boomerangs, which produced boomerangs in Gunnison. There aren't a lot of manufacturing jobs in this area, but that was one of them. He also competed in endurance horse r…

Gary Pierson grew up in the Southeast corner of Colorado in the town of Lamar. Lamar isn't in the mountains, so Gary grew up doing the things that kids in that part of the state (along with neighboring Kansas and Oklahoma) do, like football. It wasn't until college, at Adams State in Alamosa, that he began participating in mountain sports like moun…

With a name like "Deadhead Ed", it should come as no surprise that Ed Boardman is a big fan of the Grateful Dead. He saw literally 100's of shows when the Grateful Dead were still touring prior to Jerry Garcia's passing. And he continues to see shows that "spun off" from the band, such as "Dead and Company", "Phil and Friends", etc. He also became …

David Scheefer grew up in the shadows of the Olympic venues of Lake Placid, New York. Not surprisingly, that meant that he participated in all types of winter sports, including nordic skiing, alpine skiing, skating, bobsled, and if you were a kid in Lake Placed and had the guts, you could even do the Nordic ski jump. David attended Western State Co…

Will Shoemaker grew up in the midwest, but despite that, his parents were avid skiers so he grew up with a passion for skiing and the outdoors, like so many of us here in Crested Butte and the Gunnison Valley. Thanks to that passion, Will chose to attend Western Colorado University and became interested in journalism. Following an internship at the…

Ciera Freson was recruited out of her home state of Washington to ski race at Western State College (at is was then known). While she hadn't even visited Gunnison before arriving for her first fall semester, she quickly fell in love with the school and the area. After graduation, Ciera stayed on at Western State in the admissions department, recrui…

Renee "Crash" Newton grew up in the Southeast and arrived in the Gunnison Valley as a mountain neophyte. Like so many others, however, she quickly found her place here and took up all the mountain sports- while also bringing a piece of home with her: roller derby, where she got her nickname "Crash". With her college background in both biology and c…

Deuce Wynes grew up in the "state of hockey", Minnesota. Like so many other Minnesota kids, that meant that Deuce began playing hockey at an early age. High school games were attended by thousands of spectators. Deuce didn't end his hockey career there, however, and instead took his talents to Division 1 schools including Illinois-Chicago and Lake …

Turner Petersen is one of those few lucky souls who actually grew up right here in Crested Butte. While other guests on the podcast can say the same, Turner is the first guest that graduated from the Crested Butte Community School- just last year. (Prior to the late 90's, Crested Butte kids had to go to Gunnison for high school). Now going to colle…

Like many locals, Ben Morello grew up skiing in the East coast- in this case, the Poconos of Pennsylvania. He started teaching skiing as a teenager- something he's continued to do for the past 25 years here in Crested Butte. He also picked up telemark skiing, the freeheel form of skiing that may not be as popular as it once was, but still has dieha…

Sean Crossen grew up on the East Coast as a ski racer. After graduating from Green Mountain Valley School in Vermont, Sean made his way to Gunnison to attend Western State College (as it was then known). Sean quit racing, but continued to ski and entered some of the first US Extreme Skiing Championships in the early 90's. By the early 2000's, Sean …

Ali Fuchs grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, where she was lucky enough to have a friend who regularly visited Crested Butte with family. Those early trips gave Ali an early appreciation of Crested Butte, and after college and a few years chasing a career in California, she came home to Crested Butte. Ali spent the next few years learning how to mountain …

The year was 1993, and the movie was "Soul Sessions and Epic Impressions". Thus began the career of Murray Wais and his business partner Steve Winter and their fledgling company, Matchstick Productions (MSP). Every year since then, the Crested Butte based film company wows crowds across North America and beyond, and has grown into one of the most p…

Over twenty five years ago, Pat O'Neill got the call he was hoping for and began his career as a teacher in Crested Butte. Over that time, he's been able to watch the school grow from the small location where the town offices are now located, to the much larger K-12 school on the edge of town. Not only has the school grown, it's also become one of …

Like many other Crested Buttians, Ben Eaton is an East coast transplant, originally from the small ski town of Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. Ben grew up ski racing before attending St. Lawrence University in upstate New York to study art. After college, he found his way to Vail, both to coach ski racing and to further his knowledge of working w…

Carrie Jo Chernoff Hicks has a great story to tell, and I'm so glad she was able to join me for this episode. Originally from Maryland, Carrie Jo grew up loving karate, but then she didn't... Instead of giving it up, she stuck with it, however, eventually earning a black belt. That experience taught her many life lessons that stayed with her, even …

Krista Powers moved from Vermont to Crested Butte in the late 90's- but that doesn't mean she forgot her Vermont roots. Those roots include maple syrup production starting back with "Grandpa Archie" back in 1959. Recently, Krista has taken that small business to new levels with her company Vermont Sticky, that can be found in many local establishme…

Andy Eflin was born in Crested Butte the same year the ski area started- 1961. His dad, Dick Eflin, started the resort, along with Fred Rice. Class sizes were just a bit smaller back then- Andy had only one other kid his age and eventually he attended school in Gunnison, as kids did through the 1990's. After time in Durango and Steamboat, Andy retu…