We love this little town. We have probably visited this town twenty times since our children were little. The town of Crested Butte, known as the “Gateway to the Elk Mountains” was actually founded in 1880 as a supply town for all of the miners in the area. The town is small and quaint and historic.
It is located 28 miles north of Gunnison, Colorado and the airport in Gunnison is where we fly into to ski. The town of Mount Crested Butte is a couple of miles up the mountain from the town of Crested Butte.
You can stay in Crested Butte and just ride the free shuttle buses up the mountain to the base area, or you can actually stay up the mountain in Mount Crested Butte and ride the free shuttle buses down into town in the evening to eat at some of the amazing restaurants, shop in cute little boutiques and sporting goods shops, or just take in the sites in this historic community. They also have a Nordic center for cross country skiing and a skating rink.
We arrive at the little airport in Gunnison and get our bags and check in at the Alpine Express counter (it helps to make reservations ahead of time). You can rent a car but we love that we don’t have to have one on the mountain. The Alpine Express shuttles are comfortable with great guides that will tell you about the history of the areas you are driving through. It is about a 45 minute drive to Mount Crested Butte but you will travel through Gunnison and then some gorgeous country side and then through the town of Crested Butte first. There are a lot of choices of places to stay. You can rent hotels, condos or houses. Because of the shuttle routes, you can rent lodging almost anywhere and get to the base easily. The base is a great area with restaurants, lodging, equipment rental shops and stores for ski gear.
This trip we rented a room with a courtyard view, a balcony and fireplace in the Lodge at Mountaineer Square . Everything at the base is literally steps away. We usually check in and unload our bags and walk over to the Avalanche for lunch. The Avalanche is one of our favorites and is right in the middle of the base area. They have comfort food like chicken pot pie, fish and chips and patty melts. Yummy appetizers like nachos (huge portion) and raviolis are available all day. They also have great sandwiches especially the chicken. Their pizzas are really good and can be ordered after 2 (great to remember for the nights you might want to eat in and not go to town ).
There are several places to get ski rentals and if you don’t have your own, the afternoon that you arrive is a good time to go and get all of that situated. We use Christy’s which is also located in the courtyard of the Lodge at Mountaineer Square. Then a little later we bundled up and caught the shuttle bus for the quick ride to town. Our first night here we ate at one of our in town favorites (we have several). Ryce is an Asian restaurant a short walk from the mid town bus stop. We love the food. It is all excellent with really large portions. I love the fried rice and Chip loved the teriyaki dish but all of their food is great.
It is also fun to walk around town after dinner.
I will update more on a second day post. There are so many good restaurants in town. Some of our favorites from past years are Slogar’s which is a great family style restaurant with excellent fried chicken, The Wooden Nickel, The Brick Oven Pizzeria, and now Elk Avenue Prime Steakhouse. And there are some other great places to eat up on the mountain. More later.