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Crested ButteJul 5, 2009
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Starting the Lower Loop
Toward the Mountains
Wildflowers
Crested Butte lies at the end of state route 135 about 28 miles north of Gunnison. There is no other highway that goes to Crested Butte. The town is surrounded on the other three sides by mountains. Sue says that it is "Alpine" based on her visit to Switzerland and Italy.
Our first visit to Crested Butte came on Wednesday when we drove the Escape there, stopped at the visitor's center and took a hike on the Lower Loop Trail. The trail starts (after a one mile walk down a dirt road) from the west side of town and runs northward through a valley along the Slate River toward the snow-peaked mountains. At this time of year the trail is busy with hikers, runners, and mountain bikers. About a half mile out the trail forks into the upper-lower and lower-lower trails. We opted to take the upper-lower out and return on the lower-lower. There were wild flowers everywhere and the views were terrific. We stopped for a picnic part way back on the lower-lower at a spot near the river with a cool view. Our return to the car completed the seven-mile loop and a great hike.
Early yesterday morning I returned to Crested Butte for the running of the Gothic to Crested Butte Run, Walk or Crawl One-Third Marathon. I arrived at Crested Butte at about 6:45 while there was still a low fog hanging over the town. The race includes between 300 and 400 runners and we were all bussed from the Visitor's Center to the ghost town of Gothic about three miles north of the community of North Crested Butte. As you can imagine, it is a very scenic run. The first three dirt road miles climb uphill a couple of hundred feet from Gothic to within sight of Mount Crested Butte. It's mostly downhill from there! We ran the paved road downward through Mount Crested Butte and then turned onto a paved bike path that connects that town with Crested Butte. The finish of the race is on Elk Street in Crested Butte where the 4th of July parade follows the race. With the altitude ranging from 8900 to 9600 feet, I found the race much more tiring than the 8.56 mile distance would predict. I finished near the back of the pack but did win the award as the oldest finisher.
Today the three of us returned to Crested Butte for another hike. This time we elected to hike the upper and upper-upper trails that run along the mountain side east of town. We entered the trail from a spot near the golf course south of town. The trail provided the, by now ubiquitous, array of wild flowers, along with Aspen groves, and views of the mountains and the two towns. The five-mile round trip took us to a spot above the town of Mount Crested Butte and back. We stopped at the far end for lunch at a spot above the upper town and enjoyed it immensely until a local resident, informed us that we were sitting on top of a fox den! The outbound weather was sunny and beautiful and - typical of Colorado - the return was made under clouds, light sprinkles, and the threat of thunder in the distance.
We consider Crested Butte to be one of the most scenic spots that we have found in our five years of fulltiming.
