Colorful Crested Butte, Colorado

Gunnison, Colorado
Gunnison Fairgrounds


The town of Crested Butte has less than a 1500 population and is now known more for their skiing than the coal and silver mining it once did.  It sits at 8,885 ft of elevation. It's a beautiful town with plenty of hiking, mountain biking and festivals going on through it's short summer.

Crested Butte at 12,162' high

 

As we drove in we stopped at this tiny cemetery for a geocache.  There was no fancy landscaping.  It had wild daisies growing all throughout.  Very pretty.

 

I've always enjoyed reading the grave markers and the information on them about the person buried there.  Sometimes the markers are simple wood with birth and death dates and other times they are fancy marble with favorite pastimes carved into them.  Wrought iron makers were popular here.

Crested Butte viewed from town.

The town itself, while small, has a very large colorful downtown.  Flowers everywhere!

 

This was my favorite little house.  Beautiful garden.

 

We took a short drive to check out some boondocking possibilities, but with the prior storms, it was pretty muddy and the internet reception not very good. 

Another heart!  Cute isn't he?

 

With another late afternoon storm coming through, we decided to camp out at the fairgrounds down in Gunnison, about 20 miles south of Crested Butte.  Much better internet.

The view from our site at the Gunnison fairgrounds.  Not bad.  We had the place to ourselves and it was very quiet and right in town.  More cute shops and plenty of restaurant choices.

 

Good Mexican food here.

 

We spent some of our evenings and weekends back in Crested Butte.  We had a great lunch at the High Alpine Brewing Company.  We ate upstairs overlooking the brewery/bar.

Steve's favorite, the Green Gate IPA.

Spicy olive oil, prosciutto, mission figs, gorgonzola and four types of cheese with arugula on this thin crisp crust. Delicious!

 

 

This weekend was the Arts Festival.  The place was packed.  We walked through and looked around at the interesting booths.

 

 

This town has the cutest buildings, beautifully painted.

 

Community Sculpture for the event.

Cute, but a little too big for the rig!

 

 

 

At the distillery we sampled the spirits and had some yummy drinks.

 

I had a spicy Bloody Mary and Steve had a Jalapeno Citrus Martini.

We had some different foods at the booths then walked around some more and headed up in the mountains.

Just around the corner is the Camp 4 Coffee Shop.  Our RV friend, Ingrid, told us about it.  It's amazing coffee!  We bought some to have back at the rig.

Our destination was the Ghost Town of Gothic.

 

Prospectors rushed to Gothic Mountain in 1879 after the local paper reported the discovery of “wire silver" (a type of silver ore occurring in strands) was discovered in the Sylvanite Mine.  The town grew quickly, but also ended the same way and by the 1920s, was a ghost town.

 

In 1928, Dr. John C. Johnson, and his wife and three biologists founded the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, a high-altitude field station for students and scientists headquartered in Gothic.  It was established to promote the understanding and protection of alpine ecosystems in Colorado.  It is over 245 acres and has more than 60 structures.

 

They've restored many of the small buildings.

 

Not much here but a small store/visitor center where we got an ice cream made on premises and then drove further up the road for some hiking and fishing.

 

 

Wow is it pretty up here!  It was a nice, sunny day.

 

We hiked all around the river and looked at the pretty wild flowers and took lots of pictures.

 

 

The fishing was not all that good.  Just a some little native Browns.  Steve caught a few.  I was happy just following the river all over enjoying the views.

 

Hurley had a great time in the water too!

Mt. Emmons

Back into town for some more wandering before heading back home.

 

There was a lot of large sculptures around town.  This was one of our favorites.