Buttermilk summit breakfast fosters community, uplifts nonprofits

Locals piled into the Cliffhouse Restaurant on an unusually warm February morning, bacon steaming atop plates, Maroon Bells glimmering in the distance — one of many community-oriented Fridays this winter.

The Friday Morning Uphill Breakfast Club took to the Buttermilk Ski Resort summit for another winter season, inviting local uphillers every week for $8 breakfast dishes between 8:45 a.m. and 10 a.m. 

The Aspen Chamber Resort Association sponsors the winter series, cutting the cost of breakfast in half, and hosts a different nonprofit at the summit every week.

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“It’s the cheapest breakfast in the valley, and you get to come up and have really good company and see these cool organizations,” said Lillian Bell, Aspen resident and community program coordinator for the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies. 

The breakfast offers a good opportunity for locals to build community, according to Bell. She’s only missed one breakfast so far this winter.

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“I think it makes it easier for us to talk to each other and meet each other,” Bell said. 

Roughly 200 people make the climb to breakfast, interacting with a new nonprofit every week, according to Cory Lowe, integrated marketing director for Backbone Media, who represents the chamber. 

Protect Our Winters, a Boulder-based nonprofit focusing on environmental advocacy and policy change, this week engaged with community members at Cliffhouse.

“We’re in a unique moment in time,” said Ryan Laemel, chief operating officer for the nonprofit, with one of Cliffhouse’s fried rice breakfast bowls steaming on the table next to him. “2024 was the hottest year on record, and the past 10 years were the hottest years on record.”

Representing Protect Our Winters from Basalt, Laemel said the Roaring Fork Valley has seen the effects of a change in climate with an unseasonably warm February.

“We’re definitely seeing it affect our snowpack this year,” he said.

Protect Our Winters strives to educate the 175 million people who consider themselves outdoor recreators in the United States — or the “outdoor state,” according to him.

“Our goal is to help people within the outdoor state become effective climate advocates,” he said. 

He encouraged people to attend public meetings and advocate on the local, state, and federal levels. 

Protect Our Winters, which consists of 14 international chapters, also seeks to protect public lands and help the world “electrify,” or transition from fossil fuels to electric power and renewable energy sources, according to Lamael. 

“We already have most of the solutions that we need to the climate crisis,” he said. “We actually are just missing the cultural and political will to implement those solutions.”

To spread the word they’ve partnered with over 200 athletes, 50 artists, 40 scientists, and 100 brands, including Aspen Skiing Company.

“We’ve worked with Aspen for a long time,” Lamael said. “They’ve been a great partner.”

The chamber will continue to sponsor the uphill breakfast until April 4.

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.