The Crested Butte Tour

Welcome to the very best of the Rockies, Crested Butte and Mount Crested Butte Colorado.

You dreamed about a place like this once, with authentic architecture, an energy conscious transportation system, a main street that one ups Disney - because it's real.

There is a sense of adventure, of living life deeply, and of irreverence for people and places who take themselve to darn seriously.

You dreamed of escape, a place of fine eateries, and fun adventures.

For now, Please call 802 228 4228 for Kristen or Rob or send email to wasup@pikus.com

You can explore old barns.

You can lose yourself in the Snow..

You can put the Grump in the fire, and celebrate another year by watching the sun come up over the Crest.

You just found your dream.

Crested Butte named historic hot spot
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

The National Trust for Historic Preservation tapped Crested Butte, lying at 8,800 feet between Gunnison and Aspen, for the honor, which spotlights places that offer cultural and recreational experiences starkly different than the typical vacation destination.

The judges noted that the former mining town has held true to its 19th-century heritage, while offering the best of skiing and mountain biking to the most hard-core adventurer.

The main street in the town of 1,600 "oozes charm," and the city exudes a friendly warmth and peaceful ambience, said officials from the National Trust.

"There are a lot of adults here who have tasted density, and they want serenity," said Don Cook, who moved to Crested Butte 31 years ago, and later founded the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame and Museum, housed in downtown Crested Butte.

The mountains drew him, but the people are the reason he stays, Cook said. "There's a strong sense of volunteerism. People want to give time to whatever their organization is."

He remembers the dirt downtown streets, the potholes so big that it was faster to ride a bike through town than trying to wend throgh the streets in a car.

So, he's not criticizing all of the improvements that popularity brought.

But he Cook worries about changes that have come the past dozen years, as people with a lot of money have pushed up real estate prices and started demanding the same services they enjoyed where they used to live.

"I ask them, 'Why do you want to change this? Why do you want to bring in this, and change that? If it's not what you're looking for, why did you move here?'"

Crested Butte attracts educated people who've decided they don't want 9 to 5, 50-week-a-year jobs, Cook said. "We get people who say life is more important than living the status quo," he said, "who want to work two days a week and have five days off."

There are plenty of great mountain towns in Colorado, but darn few that still have escaped the tourism commercialism and still retain the old buildings of their mining past, he said.

The National Trust cited Crested Butte's "vibrant design of a Victorian-era village, with its wooden false-front buildings, street-corner flower boxes and antique lampight."

Nineteenth-century buildings on Elk Avenue have been reinvented as coffee shops, quaint restaurants and specialty shops, they said.

The Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum, built in 1883, once was a blacksmith shop, but now is a repository for relics from the town's mining era and more recent skiing history. Portraits of early residents, many of them immigrants from Croatia and Slovenia, lined the wall.

"Crested Butte is a delightful hidden gem that offers a rare mix of beauty, history and adventure," said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Crested Butte, and Mount Crested Butte, Colorado

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