“I felt like I had nothing to lose so I cut loose”

Fat Tire Bike Week was off the Richter this past week and culminated on fire with the Wildflower Rush Downhill on Sunday, June 27. Read More »

“July is busy enough as it is”

Nearly six months ago, members of the Mt. Crested Butte business community and the Town Council met to discuss how they could work together. One of the messages sent by the business community was that events are critical to drawing people to the mountain. Read More »

There are few finer places to spend a summer’s day than in this valley. Each good day here is worth about eight great days most other places. When the sun is shining, the sky is blueing, the stars are blazing, life at 8,800 feet above sea level is pretty sweet.
Looking at the forecast, we are in one of the kind cycles and that’s a good thing given the glut of activities happening this week. It is the start of summer. It will be 75 and happy in Crested Butte, 101 and miserable in Dallas.
We have wild bike races scheduled all weekend on the mountain trails. A Bayou in the Butte Music festival downtown will bring a Cajun flavor to the park, and a Fat Tire 40 backcountry bike race, through the generosity of the Veltris, will allow bikers to race on the Strand Hill Road. We have a townie bike rally that will have riders making circles around the bridges of Crested Butte after the bars close but before the coffee shops open.
There is the chainless race on Friday, which last year produced one of my favorite photos ever. Picture a bare-chested local attorney in a Mexican wrestling mask, the sparkly Chamber of Commerce representative with a PBR in hand, and a uniformed Forest Service dude takin’ names and trying to explain the rules of Kebler Pass Road. Rules? “We don’t need more stinkin’ rules,” the Lucha Libre lawyer and Sparkly explained (politely) and the race went on. Of course, this year there are rules but the race should be a spectacle nonetheless. Speaking of spectacles… what about the Gadfly singing in the Mountain Theatre production of Guys and Dolls that opens this Friday.
Kayaks will be racing the raging Oh-Be-Joyful falls on Sunday, Karl Denson will entertain on the Red Lady stage at the base of the ski lifts Saturday evening, a soccer tournament saluting the World Cup at every field in Crested Butte will be taking place and the Gunnison River Festival celebrating water in Gunnison is being held as well. The Farmer’s Market is Sunday morning on Elk Avenue, a pie-eating contest to benefit the youth council is Sunday afternoon in the same place. There are weddings, bar mitzvahs, family reunions and no shortage of opportunities to find a bit more solitude if you’d like, with a hike or bike, a fishing outing or canoe trip in one of the valleys this place offers. It’s a complete summer in a weekend.
Oh, and the first Alpenglow concert (bring those coozies) will draw a crowd to the outdoor Center for the Arts stage on Monday evening. Buckle your seat belts—we are about to hit 75 mph in the tourist lane. And that is a good thing, my friends. We at the News are acknowledging the fast lane by including the visitor-focused Weekly in our second section. It will run there for the next few months. Enjoy the profiles and features.
Relish this time, for it is not the longest of seasons—but it is one of the best. Any one of these days is worth eight good ones anywhere else.
The forecast calls for sunny and 70s with no shortage of things to do. Enjoy. It is summer in the mountains.

“I think we are even more appealing than Telluride”

Summer in the mountains is short but sweet. It’s also a very busy time in the north end of the valley, and a slew of events, festivals, and concerts are stacked up back to back from mid-June into the fall, ensuring there’s plenty to do for visitors and locals alike.

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And I don’t mean the weather

We are heading into Alpenglow season shortly and there will be a few changes to the popular summer concerts, including a reminder that open containers are not technically allowed or legal on the field where the audience watches the bands. Read More »

Karl Denson to headline FTBW
Fat Tire Bike Week (FTBW) keeps getting “phatter” with the addition of a free concert added to the week-long event. Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, no stranger to playing in the Gunnison Valley, will play a free concert up at the mountain on Saturday, June 26. Other FTBW highlights include the famed Chainless Race, the Fat Tire 40, and a slew of opportunities for guided rides, clinics to polish your skill set, and bike demos for checking out the latest rides. The event runs June 22-27.
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Party on the podium

It was an all-out assault on Cortez, Colo. as a small army of bikers, 50-strong from the Gunnison Valley, headed southwest for the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde and came away with numerous top-three finishes. Read More »

Fat Tire rolls on

The 2010 Fat Tire Bike Week is scheduled for June 22-27, and the organizers are getting both the entertainment and logistics dialed for the event. Up on the mountain, on Tuesday, April 20, the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council approved the Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce’s request for $10,000 in the form of an Admissions Tax Marketing Fund Grant. Read More »

Council transformation
Prior to its April 6 meeting, the town held a reception for outgoing council members Bill Babbitt, Wendy Fisher and Mike Kube. As the meeting began, newly elected council members Danny D’Aquila, William Buck, and David O’Reilly took the oath of office. Recently elected council member Chris Morgan was not present at the meeting. The new council moved to select William Buck as mayor and David Clayton as mayor pro tem for a term of two years. Read More »

Thursday, April 8 at 5:30 p.m.

Former Crested Butte resident Jack Hannan perished while backcountry skiing in Canada on March 31. Jack, his wife, Laura Ogden, and friends Dan and Tessa Treadway were skiing on Mt. Currie, an 8,500-foot-high peak in the Pemberton Valley in British Columbia. Read More »