CRESTED BUTTE — Sometimes you yearn to return to a place for so long that you forget what you were yearning for in the first place.
It was one such undefined desire that put me on U.S. 285 headed toward the first week of February. Scheduling conflicts had derailed plans for my husband, daughters and my cousin from Seattle to accompany me on the trip, so I made the six-hour drive from Fort Collins alone.
Turns out I don’t mind alone — in fact I really like it. I soaked up the serenity as I cruised along stretches of ranchland framed by towering peaks and only occasionally interrupted by towns made up of a couple of houses and a gas station.
As I drove I tried to remember the last time I had been to Crested Butte in the winter. My daughters and I visited two summers ago to take in the spectacular wildflowers, but I tallied up more than a decade of winters since I had last skied the Butte. And through all of those years, the remote resort has been calling to me.
Arriving in town that evening, I turned onto the main drag, Elk Avenue, to get something to eat. It was below zero with piles of snow higher than my car lining the road, yet the warm windows beckoned.
After dinner and a marg at (which offers amazing Mexican food despite being owned by a Swede) and some brisk window-shopping, I made the 3-mile drive up to Mt. Crested Butte to check into one of the many slopeside hotels. (I didn’t even make it to the lobby before smelling like pot and being offered some.)
While Crested Butte is arguably the most authentic mountain town left in Colorado and has a laid-back, friendly vibe, neither factor is what fueled my cross-state pilgrimage back to the area.
The next morning I headed up the mountain in search of the remote corners where I most like to ski. Unloading off the North Face T-bar and turning to face downhill, I found the answer to my quest all around me. Far from the rolling foothills of the Front Range, these are sharp, towering mountains that are too rugged for man to settle upon.
Rows of these mammoths encircle Crested Butte, protecting it from the strip-mall-laden super resorts found elsewhere in the state. Heck, the closest Starbucks is 30 miles away in Gunnison. And the mountain, with all of its untamed steeps, has the same out-in-the-wilderness feel. Skiers can actually descend the iconic Butte itself — and it’s thrilling to do so.
But you don’t have to be an expert skier to have a wilderness experience in Crested Butte. Off of the East River and Paradise lifts there are newly cut intermediate glades hiding powder stashes for days after a storm. In the lower northern corner of the resort three lifts serve an out-of-the way beginner area that was nearly deserted on the Saturday I visited it.
After two days exploring the resort, I returned to the challenging terrain of the Teocalli Bowl for my last run. TEO2, the resort’s newest 40 acres of skiing, hadn’t opened for the season yet, so I dove into the bowl just south of it.
That run was as untamed and beautiful as it was challenging — in other words, it was everything I love most about skiing.
And now that I’ve been reminded that Crested Butte has the goods, I can promise it won’t be long until I return for more.
Chryss Cada is a freelance writer and journalism instructor at Colorado State University. Visit her at Chryss.com.
