Crested Butte is not your average resort; it's a real mountain community with locals as loyal as they come. It's a bear to get to, but locals say that keeps the pretenders out. Though one reader quibbles, "not enough snow this season," you can't blame that on the resort. In the big picture, Mother Nature has been generous.
The Butte is nestled in the Elk Mountain Range and offers stunning mountain vistas from every direction. The Alps-like terrain is some of the steepest in Colorado. Crested Butte regularly attracts daring skiers with its sheer face, tight chutes and huckable cliffs and helped put the word "extreme" into skiing's vocabulary. "Superior terrain," says one reader, "an expert's mountain."
But families find their niche here, too. "Great ski school and instructors," a reader says. Following other pro-safety resorts, kids under 12 must now wear helmets for ski school. Though one reader laments that Crested Butte is "isolated, with high travel time and costs," another views it as "a nice, quaint, out-of-the-way place to ski." New daily nonstop Continental Airlines service from Houston and daily United flights from Denver make the mountain much easier to access. With an increase in flights and new resort management, complemented by the always-great restaurants, bars and lodging in "America's last ski town," there may be no better time to visit. -Krista Crabtree
[250AD]
Great Lodging Deals here.
