Everyone knows that Crested Butte has many attractive attributes (lots of expert terrain, cute ski town, no lift lines); however, state-leading snow ain't one of them. Who woulda thunk that an early January visit would put me in the middle of a 90-inch storm cycle? Isn't Colorado's big snow period supposed to be March into April? Anyway, CB has been getting a lot of nice press from this run:
Sunday (snowing heavily all day + fog + flat light) was one of those times when photos just weren't capturing how good the skiing was. Plus, I was skiing solo so no one was there to take pix of me or serve as a subject. I mixed up runs through knee-deep single-diamond woods with bootcuff deep trail runs and it was great. I usually don't believe in raving "Top 5 day of the season" in real time, but it certainly felt like it.
One of the big secrets about Crested Butte is that there's quite a bit of terrain for mere mortals too: long upper-intermediate runs with no flat spots and even a healthy amount of green trails. The marketing department's been trying to communicate that talking point forever, but the pesky "experts-only" perception persists to a certain degree. In short, it's a real nice mountain in a location -- four-ish hours from Denver if the roads are dry/add another hour in tough weather, including a white-knuckle Monarch Pass -- that you have to make a special commitment to ski. The tradeoff is that you're amply rewarded on a variety of levels, especially when conditions are great. Atmospheric Elk Avenue in town, which is a U.S. national historic landmark district, is also noteworthy.
Unfortunately, all I have are a few trail pix. If you want more professional shots, check out the Denver Post link at the top:
Crested Butte village scores extra points for having a Volant bench at a ski bus stop:
Sunday (snowing heavily all day + fog + flat light) was one of those times when photos just weren't capturing how good the skiing was. Plus, I was skiing solo so no one was there to take pix of me or serve as a subject. I mixed up runs through knee-deep single-diamond woods with bootcuff deep trail runs and it was great. I usually don't believe in raving "Top 5 day of the season" in real time, but it certainly felt like it.
One of the big secrets about Crested Butte is that there's quite a bit of terrain for mere mortals too: long upper-intermediate runs with no flat spots and even a healthy amount of green trails. The marketing department's been trying to communicate that talking point forever, but the pesky "experts-only" perception persists to a certain degree. In short, it's a real nice mountain in a location -- four-ish hours from Denver if the roads are dry/add another hour in tough weather, including a white-knuckle Monarch Pass -- that you have to make a special commitment to ski. The tradeoff is that you're amply rewarded on a variety of levels, especially when conditions are great. Atmospheric Elk Avenue in town, which is a U.S. national historic landmark district, is also noteworthy.
Unfortunately, all I have are a few trail pix. If you want more professional shots, check out the Denver Post link at the top:
Crested Butte village scores extra points for having a Volant bench at a ski bus stop:
