VAIL - The idea to start a ski area in Crested Butte was born, interestingly enough, in Germany.

Dick Eflin, who will be inducted into the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame in Vail Saturday - was stationed in that country while serving in the U.S. Air Force. There, he met Dick Jahnke, a University of Colorado graduate who told Eflin of a wonderful place to start a ski area.

Returning to the U.S., Eflin got longtime college buddy Fred Rice interested in financing a ski area in Crested Butte, and together they formed Crested Butte LTD, opening the mountain on Thanksgiving Day, 1961.

Bill Allen, a later business partner of Eflin's, said he sponsored him for the Hall because of his contributions to skiing in Crested Butte.

"He's the last of the Mohicans," Allen said. "Probably the last person who was a founder of a major Colorado ski resort who's not in the hall of fame."

Like many of the early ski area founders, Eflin was driven by a love for the sport, Allen said.

"We're talking a real ski freak here," Allen said. "He absolutely adores skiing."

Eflin, Allen said, is still getting up on the hill in his 70s, logging a number of days in the Italian Alps last winter. And he still skis Crested Butte on occasion, although he calls Naples, Fla. his home these days.

While Eflin and Rice were instrumental in the birth of the ski area, the venture had its ups and downs - particularly in the late 1960s. Even so, they managed to get the Forest Service approvals and the lifts turning that first season, followed the next year with the installation of a gondola.

"Dick Eflin deserves to be inducted, absolutely," said Tom Glass, a former mayor of Crested Butte. "He put the blood, sweat and tears into Crested Butte when times were toughest, and he survived."

Eflin first got interested in skiing in 1950, visiting his brother at the University of Colorado. Eflin was pursuing a degree in architecture at the University of Kansas, but he fell in love with Colorado after skiing Winter Park, Berthoud Park and Arapahoe Basin.

"He was a hard worker the whole time I've known him," Allen said. "He raised a nice family and just has an inordinate amount of friends from all over the world."

With new management planning big changes for Crested Butte, Allen said he and Eflin are both excited to see what happens. For Eflin, it'll be a far cry from those days in the early 1960s, when a single T-bar and a rope-tow borrowed from nearby Western State College comprised the area's uphill capacity.

Over the years, even after his role of running the ski area was past, Eflin remained an active member of the Crested Butte community. He served 25 years as president of the local water and sanitation district, served on the town council, helped start a regional museum and started Eflin Sports - now Peak Sports - in 1990.

"I'm so happy he was inducted," Glass said. "He put a lot of his life out there for skiing in that part of the state."

Alex Miller can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 615, or amiller@vaildaily.com.



Vail Daily, Vail, Colorado