I think I was in Crested Butte once before sometime in the
early 1990s, but if I was I didn’t spend much time there because it didn’t look
familiar at all to me . Crested Butte is another one of those Colorado mining
towns turned chic resort because of its beautiful location nearby Crested Butte
ski area, one of those places with great natural amenities people who have the
means love to get away to, and others live in for the same reasons while
working to serve their needs. Crested Butte’s mining history is as a coal town rather
than gold or silver mining like most of Colorado’s other mountain towns, but
there’s little difference in its appearance or current state because of it.

In Crested Butte you somehow feel like you are in a very
remote place, almost like in another country or mountain range other than the
Rockies. To me it’s hard to explain just why. Maybe it’s because there’s only
one paved road in and it’s quite a distance to the next town south (Gunnison).
There are unpaved forest roads like the one I came on across Kebler Pass to the
west and Schofield Pass to the north, and it’s not all that far from Aspen as
the crow flies over the rugged Elk Range, but it’s a place you have to make as
a destination . You don’t just drive through Crested Butte on the highway or
even take it in on a scenic loop on the way to someplace else.

Maybe that’s why it has remained so attractive in the sense
of the town having preserved most of its historic integrity and appearance.
That may be because, unlike Aspen, Telluride, or Breckenridge that are situated
at the base of their ski mountains, the Mount Crested Butte resort and its
modern accommodations are situated a few miles away from the historic town. I
particularly enjoyed Nepalese lunch of Thugpa Noodles at the Sherpa Café in
town. It somehow felt especially appropriate for such a high elevation place
situated at nearly 9,000 feet.

The Mount Crested Butte ski resort is equally impressive
from the distance. I guess it’s popular with people who fly in from out of
state like Texas and California, because Coloradoans don’t talk too often about
skiing there. It’s quite a drive from Denver when so much other great skiing is
much closer . True to its name, Crested Butte is situated on a single mountain
or butte that sticks up out of the ranch country around it. I’m definitely
putting it on my list to return to in the winter for skiing.

My Jeep is such that I could have crossed directly over
Schofield Pass from Marble to Crested Butte via Gothic since the road is
passable for many high-clearance cars without four wheel drive, but I decided
on the longer route via Paonia and the West Elk Mountains. So from Mount
Crested Butte I drove north towards the remote village of Gothic on a beautiful
road through the forest high above the ranchland along the East River. The
terrain was high enough that most of the leaves had already fallen off the
aspens, but the leafless groves and glades were beautiful in their own way as
they prepared for winter before snow actually covered the ground. This is
another of the truly paradise like places in Colorado.

Gothic is now nearly a ghost town, although some of the buildings
appear inhabited and the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory nearby leads to
some activity . Gothic grew up in the late 1800s around silver mines and once
supported a population of around a thousand people, but you’d never guess it
from the handful of buildings scattered mostly some distance away from the
unpaved road through town. The area impresses me as though it would be a
fantastic place for some cross country skiing once the snow gets deep, but I don’t
know if the road is plowed as far as the town in winter. I’ll need to come back
and find out!