How Long Should We Stay

How Long Should You Stay in Crested Butte?

Let’s just start with winter. Having taken at least 5 trips to Crested Butte in my short life, I can tell you certainly that 3 days is the optimum amount of time that you should stay. Any less is just too short to enjoy it all. More than this and you run the risk of feeling like you have been here too long. The hill is not very big. At 1125 skiable acres, it ranks 15th in terms of size out of 24 mountains in Colorado. If you are intermediate skier or better, you can ski this whole mountains easily in two days. If you only like the hard stuff or if you can only ski the greens, then you have much less terrain to play in. Not to say that skiing the same great runs several times isn’t a ton of fun, but you know what we’re saying.

Crested Butte (the town) is awesome, but it’s pretty small. You can walk the whole thing in 20 minutes, and that’s both sides of the street. In three days, you can hit all the good watering holes and cantinas that they offer. Sure, you can run down to Gunnison, and it’s a nice town, but it’s just a town with not much to do.

So you at least need three days to soak it all in.

Now for the summer and fall, you might need more than that. There are outdoor concerts, some amazing hiking, golf, fly fishing, regular fishing, festivals, some of the best mountain biking in the state, nay, the world. Plus, tons of other events that I can’t remember. So depending on how much of the outdoors you like to take in, you could spend a week here and not feel like it was long enough.

The spring in any mountain town is tricky. Intense sun in the day and freezing at night, and, what they don’t tell you about when you’re skiing, mud. Lots and lots of mud. With a side of mud. That snow needs to melt off before you want to spend even an afternoon here in the spring, in our humble opinions. 

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