Steeze=Style and Ease

Gotta make this a fast Crested Butte wrap up as I'm leaving for the Avy 1 class at the Sangre M. Froelicher Hut in less than an hour (sweet!). I've been meaning to write this for a few days but the internet at my apartment has been in and out, so that has made it quite difficult. Went to Crested Butte last weekend to be greeted by an unexpected 20 inches of snowfall that seemed to be blowing in over Monarch Pass. I think this was the first time I had ever actually driven over Monarch (Rapetti drove us over it last year on the epic Silverton, Wolf Creek adventure) and I gotta say that it is one big mountain pass. It made me really excited to try skiing at Monarch at some point this year. Anyways, I love the southwest part of this state. There is something so incredibly western and rugged about it that sometimes when you live in Denver and constantly ski in Summit County is really easy to lose touch with. That portion of the state while significantly less affluent seems to have the true westerners love of space, space and more space. It's not an area that I'd go wandering around private property in.
On to Crested Butte, Crested Butte sort of feels like a reverse Aspen, (which is interesting because as the crow flies, they are only 30 miles apart over Pearl Pass and the Maroon Bells). It felt to me (and I'm sure that Mel will disagree with this) like you could really sense the mining town and rancher roots of the town much more so than in Aspen. In CB, the ranches come straight up to the resort town, in Aspen, the ranches are all owned by movie stars. The peak itself of CB is phenomenally beautiful. For the few moments that we glimpsed it (the whole valley was socked in the entire weekend we were there), it's an epic pointed peak that looms out of the center of the valley, with a jagged cut to it that pierces into the sky. To quote a local on the lift, "I moved here because I was looking for smaller towns and bigger mountains.". I think that that pretty much sums up the town of Crested Butte and the jagged rugged peak. Also, it could be because this was pretty early season with only about 20 % of the mountain open, but it seemed very much so to have a real locals scene to it, people who had found there own little slice of paradise up valley.
The skiing was way better than I had anticipated, I was expecting two runs to be open, which was about the case, but the 20 inches of snow over the weekend sure as hell made those 2 (I am grossly underexaggerating here) runs feel to be about some of the best runs this season. The snow was your classic light and fluffy Colorado Champagne powder, which was different than any of the stuff that has fallen on the Front Range so far. Pretty bad stuff for Avalanche danger though, which is the reason we canceled our planned tour. Between not knowing the terrain, the avy danger and the lack of visibility we decided to play it safe and ski the resort. Besides the snow was so good there we didn't really need all that much else. No action shots this week, but I've got some scenics that I'm putting up.
I'd go back to Crested Butte in a heartbeat, between the locals scene and the big mountain that had so much more terrain that wasn't open to explore, it seems like the kind of place once could really spend a season. And it was super cheap, even with the free lift tickets tossed in!
On the stereo- Uncle John's Band- Grateful Dead