Club Colorado  

With weather forecasters calling for snow in the mountains and a three day weekend ahead that included Valentine’s Day, we packed up the family truckster and headed to Crested Butte. Plus, I needed to check out the new stuff at Crested Butte like the totally renovated Ice Bar and new Kids Adventure Center.

After driving through snow storms most of the way, especially on Monarch Pass – I swear it is always snowing on that pass – we rolled into the Elevation Hotel at Crested Butte Mountain Resort. The next day we hit the slopes with the kids and I realized that Crested Butte has some great beginner terrain including some double greens.

For Valentine’s Day our gift to each other was putting the kids in ski school. With free reign of the mountain we headed straight to Camp 4 Coffee at the top of Painter Boy lift and toasted the day ahead of us.

Another thing I noticed at Crested Butte is that there is staff everywhere, just waiting to help answer questions, give directions, pick people up from the bottom of the lift ramp, or point out where Snodgrass is exactly.

All the terrain is open at Crested Butte including the North Face lift where we went next. The hike back into Spellbound Bowl was beautiful but I realized that I need to step up the cardio workouts, I was sucking wind like a Mile Higher.

During lunch at Paradise on the mountain, we ran into the Mayor of Mt. Crested Butte, Will Buck. And like any proud mayor, he offered to show us some of the hidden treasures on the hill. We followed Mr. Mayor the rest of the afternoon from one boundary rope to the other and covered as much terrain in-between as we could.

After a quick stop at the Ice Bar, which I found out, now serves sit-down lunch in a super-cozy, intimate cabin, we picked up the kids and went straight to the Adventure Center’s tubing hill. They also have ice skating and Euro trampoline jumping. After exhausting themselves on that we took full advantage of the hot tub and pool at the Elevation and of course hit 9380 Prime for some well deserved après.