A letter from a local
Last great ski town, first great bike town.
Crested Butte is what people think they're getting when they move to a ski town, before the ski town turns out to be a mall. Seventeen hundred of us, one paved road in, and Elk Avenue painted like a candy shop at the foot of a mountain that means it. The lifts are five minutes from my kitchen.
Summer is the secret, though. This valley invented mountain biking and never stopped — the 401 in wildflower season is the single best thing you can do on two wheels, and I will die on that hill, happily, surrounded by lupine.
Work is the honest trade-off: the mountain, the guiding outfits, the research station up at Gothic, and remote work for everyone else. People here patch a living together the way they patch a powder suit — and nobody's in a hurry to leave.
Come for closing day. If the costume skiing doesn't convert you, the 401 in July will.
— Sam