Eating in Crested Butte

Vacation is a great time to do some eating. We mostly ate in our condo to save some cash, but we managed to get out in Crested Butte a bit too.

• The Secret Stash - 303 Elk Ave : Great pizzeria with some normal and unusual pizzas. The drinks aren't half bad either (Christine and Jen were liking the KP-resso Martini)


• Sunshine Deli - 214 Elk Ave : When our first breakfast choice was closed (to go skiing) we found the Sunshine Deli. Really good breakfast. I had banana battered french toast.


• Crested Butte Brewery - 226 Elk Ave : I feel like most brewpubs are around just because they are a hip and trendy sort of thing for a ski town to have. The beer usually isn't terrible, but it's rarely impressive. Same goes with the food. (One notable exception to this is Snake River Brewing in Jackson, WY.) The food at the CB Brewery pretty much meet my expectations of a typical brewpub. Eh.

Snowboarders on the T-bar

Riding a T-bar is pretty simple when you're on skis, but it's a real pain in the butt on a snowboard. If you're good, you can situate the bar between your legs just right so it's not killing you the whole way up. If you're bad, you end up tumbling.

Funniest sight of the Crested Butte trip:
On a non-powder day, you can get away with riding the T-bar alone, which makes things a lot easier when you’re on a snowboard. On a powder day, you can be sure that nobody is riding up the lift solo. Petro and Jonathan are both snowboarders; one rides regular (left foot in front), one rides goofy (right foot in front) and they were riding up together. If they had thought about it in advance, they would have situated themselves so that they were riding back to back. Unfortunately, they didn’t figure this out until it was too late and ended up riding face to face, practically hugging. It was hilarious to watch. If Jonathan weren’t a foot and a half taller, they would have been making out the whole way up. Tragedy struck part way up the T-bar when they got entangled and had to bail off the t-bar and walk the rest of the way, post-holing in the powder. I felt for them, but I still had a good laugh at their expense.

Crested Butte After Hours

I've never been at a mountain resort after the lifts close and the crowds go away. It's beautifully silent. In the evenings I would walk Kuzca along the base of the mountain and enjoy crunch of the snow under our feet after all the hustle and bustle of a normal ski day had long since disappeared. It made me wish I had my touring gear with me, so I could skin up and make some turns in complete silence.

Another advantage of being so close to the mountain was that it meant we had an awesome sledding hill out our front door. And lucky for us, our condo came equipped with sleds. Kuzca enjoyed running around the mountain and chasing Christine and I on sleds. She spent most of the time bighting at us because she thought she was saving us from the evil red plastic of doom that was making us fly down the hill.

Crested Butte

When you plan a ski trip a few months in advance, it’s pretty much a roll of the dice as to whether or not the weather will cooperate. Sometimes (usually), it doesn’t work out. Other times, it works out better than you could imagine. Our Crested Butte trip fell into the latter category.

Copper Lake , Crested Butte

I've always heard that Crested Butte is a beautiful place, but I had never actually been there until last weekend. Christine and I took Friday off to go backpacking to Copper Lake.