Crested Butte

This quaint but meticulously upkept storybook town is real treat. Not to mention having a Christmas-like feel to it after being covered in roughly 50 inches of new snow.

For lodging, we ended up staying at the Cristiana Guesthaus as mentioned earlier. It was a fun bed and breakfast that had free Wi-Fi service, an outdoor hot tub, and common space on both the lower and upper levels for people to eat, lounge, and enjoy each others company. As for our room, it was tiny but clean and nicely kept. For some reason I couldn’t help think of this as a radically scaled down version of Le Chateau Montebello. I suppose I was just reminiscing of an age now long past.

The following are a few pictures of the town after spending the morning on the slopes:

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At around 3pm we left the city and began a four hour drive back home, which is quite beautiful if you have never experienced what Highway 50 has to offer.

For us, the exploration of Crested Butte has just begun. There still more to experience of the mountain resort as well as the town. I also hear that the Wildflower Festival is a sight to behold, not to mention how great I imagine some of the back roads would be while traveling on two wheels.

Tags: Crested Butte

Ginger Cafe

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The Ginger Cafe is where we stopped for dinner yesterday evening based on recommendations from the staff at the Cristiana Guesthaus. Although we had other tasty choices, we seemed to be in the mood for pan-asian cuisine. The only problem is that it took almost three hours to get served. I don’t think we would have been as nearly troubled by the long wait if the waitresses had been a little bit more empathetic but they didn’t seem to care. Our pain was slighly eased by spending some time enjoying the The Wooden Nickel bar and then the Ginger Cafe bar before eating. By the way, if you have a sweet tooth, try the “Drunken Thai Tea” at the Ginger Cafe bar. It is a blend of Indian tea, milk, amaretto, and rum.

In the end, the food was outstanding and I definitely recommend checking out the five-table (roughly) establishment. That is, if you are not pressed for time and don’t mind the sub-par service.

Tags: Crested Butte

Crested Butte Mountain Resort

Taking advantage of the free skiing and the recent heavy snowfall, Kate and I took off for a short two-day vacation near the Crested Butte Mountain Restort. Opening up a ski map of the area you will see that many of the runs on the mountain are black diamonds or double black diamonds, which definitely put a smile on my face. However, many of the diamond/double diamond runs were not open yet. At least many of the high elevation runs that, at least for me, looked to be the most interesting. Despite this fact, we were still able to experience a good portion of the mountain and I really enjoyed the “International” black run. Being a bit of speed demon, I was able to race down the face of the mountain for what seemed like a couple of miles at high speed. As for tree runs, I had a difficult time finding them since the trees were so tightly packed. The following are pictures from an afternoon on the slopes (since we drove all morning to reach them):

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Tags: Crested Butte