Some History on Crested Butte:
My guide was Erica Reiter, PR Manager for Crested Butte
“The difference between Crested Butte and say Aspen or Telluride is that they were gold and silver mining towns with a lot of money in the big booms. Crested Butte was a coal mining town. The storefronts are all wood because there wasn’t money for brick or stone. What’s now Camp4 Coffee is covered in old license plates which were used for siding or roofs.”
In 1974 the town was designated a National Historic District. The first miners arrived in the 1870s. Before that the area was occupied by the Ute Indians. The gold and silver booms of the 1880s started Crested Butte. In 1881 the Denver and Rio Grande railway went to Gunnison. Coal was discovered in the 1880s and sustained the town for the next 60 years. The last mine closed in 1952. In the mid 1950s a few people bought summer homes from miners who were forced to leave because of the bad economy. In 1953 the Keystone Mine was reopened for base metal production of lead, copper and zinc. It closed in 1968. The ski area began to develop in 1962. Crested Butte never had a bonanza. It never got rich like some other ski towns. It stayed steady, worked hard and got by. Mt Crested Butte has modern shopping and lodging.
Western State College in Gunnison will be running shuttles up Cottonwood Pass. The pass will close at 5:00 the day before. They don’t want a lot of cars up there and it will be difficult to park. They don’t want it to look like a used car lot. They say cars parked where they shouldn’t will be towed. The shuttles are $10 per person unless you wear red which is the color of Western. Then it’s just $5. Red is also for the red and white polka dot climbing jersey. They have 5 shuttles that are 16-passenger vans. 255 people total, 5 vans, 3 times. They’ll start at 6 am. It’s a great opportunity for families who can bring the coolers, lawn chairs, etc. This way dad can go up the night before and camp out or ride up on his bike if he wants to.
Crested Butte is a unique spot in Colorado, a hidden jewel, says my host Erica Reiter, a former Olympic snowboarder. There are no traffic lights on the main street and no franchise stores.
Dave Ochs says the people are a lot of like-minded individuals. There’s a lot of sense of home and belonging, a sense of community. It’s more modest. It’s multi-generational.
There are a lot of festivals-wildflowers, wine, film, cycling and much more.
Darren Cole: “We’re trying to promote the race. We had a group ride to celebrate it. We paraded through town like the race will do. It was fun. We’ve already had two huge bike events this summer, Ride the Rockies and the Fat Tire 40. There will be the Leadville 100 Qualifier next weekend and then the USA Pro Challenge and Pearl Pass in September.
Erica showed me the finish line at Mt Crested Butte, near Elevations Hotel where I stayed. It will definitely be an uphill finish, 3 miles up. The altitude is around 9,380′.
Crested Butte welcomed Adventure Park’s Canopy Zip Line in June. It’s been extremely popular. There are 5 zip lines from 200′-380′ long. They include an Indiana Jones type bridge with a net climb and a spiral staircase as well as an auto-belay area.
Erica and the LOC hosted me for appetizers at Dogwood Cocktail Cabin which is an old restored mining cabin. While we were there, of all people, Andy Hampsten walked in!
We walked around town and explored many of the local shops. We visited the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, run by town treasure, Glo Cunningham.
Afterwards Dave and Darren treated me to an excellent dinner at Maxwell’s on Elk Ave. They serve high quality steaks, lamp chops, pastas, salads, burgers and more.
