Guide to Crested Butte Summer Activities for One Day Visit

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Talking about Crested Butte summer activities, there are tons of outdoor adventures that await you in town and surrounding area. From hiking to biking, fly fishing to camping, horseback riding to golfing, let’s just say, it’s an endless possibility.

But what if you only have one day to spend in Crested Butte, Colorado? If it is your first time in the town? If you travel with your dog? What summer activities to do while in Crested Butte? These are the things that I had in mind when our family visited Crested Butte a couple of weeks ago. Plus, we were visiting from Gunnison, about a half-hour drive to the south.

Honestly, I didn’t have a planned itinerary for Crested Butte summer activities when we went there. I just knew that we would do a hike, but not sure which hiking trail we wanted to do. There are so many hiking trails in Crested Butte and they all look incredible with different mileage, difficulty, and spectacular views to offer. Then, we would stroll around town and do one or two other things. Basically, we played by ear.

The morning we left for Crested Butte, we stopped at a Visitor Center in Gunnison. The lady in the center asked my family’s outdoor interests, then I left with two Crested Butte magazines for the year 2020, a Crested Butte Community Map, a Crested Butte Gunnison Valley Biking Trails Map that can be used for hiking, and a Gunnison County Day Hiking Guide that includes trails in Crested Butte & Mt. Crested Butte area.

On our way to Crested Butte I looked through the brochures and magazines, and found a trail that looked like it would fit my family and our time frame while in town. Besides, one of the hiking guides and Crested Butte Visitor’s Guide Magazine offered that same trail for Crested Butte summer activities. So, that’s where we headed first.

Crested Butte Summer Activities for One Day Visit

1. Hiking

As an adventure-sports capital and the Wildflower Capital of Colorado, hiking is one way to experience the wild beauty of Crested Butte. The town is surrounded by so many hiking trails that ranges from easy to challenging, with length from a mile to more than 20 miles. Choose a trail that suits your time frame in town.

We chose the Oh-Be-Joyful Trail, one of the nine local favorite hikes offered in the Crested Butte Visitor’s Guide Magazine for summer 2020. It’s a 4-12 miles round trip, but hikers can choose to hike as much or as little as they like on this easy to moderate trail. If you like mountains views, streams, wildlife and flowers, you will fall in love with Oh-Be-Joyful Trail.

Access: From Crested Butte, travel north on Gothic Road (stay on the same road when you get to Crested Butte from Gunnison or Almont.) Less than a quarter mile, make a left on Slate River Road. Follow the asphalt road until you hit the unpaved road. Drive for another 4.5 miles on the dirt road until you see Oh-Be-Joyful Campground sign on the left. Drive 0.5 mile to the campground at the bottom of the hill. Park here, use the vault toilet if needed before you cross the footbridge over the Slate River.

The trail follows an old mining road, climbing fairly steeply for a brief time. (I think the easy part was a few yards in the beginning. lol.) Once you reach the overlook of the large slide, follow the trail along the creek on your left instead of the road. You will be rewarded with several large waterfalls and slides. It’s really pretty! There are places where you can go to the creek and even have a picnic lunch.

You can continue up the valley as far as you wish. You will pass colorful wildflower meadows, dark sub-alpine forests, and lush creek-side wetlands until you reach Daisy Pass or Blue Lake. Once here, you can turn around to the Oh-Be-Joyful Campground or continue on the trails ahead.

Extra: We found the Oh-Be-Joyful Campground location is really pretty. The Slate River divides the campsites into two areas where visitors can do fishing or fly fishing in the river. Pets are allowed, picnic tables are at every site, and it’s a family friendly campground. It is open year round, but on a first-come first-serve basis. Prices range from $5-$30 nightly, and we plan to camp here in the future.

Note: we drove our minivan to the base of the campground, but it will be better if you drive a truck, jeep, or SUV.

Other local favorite hikes:

1. Baxter Gulch 

    Degree of difficulty: moderate to difficult

    Length: 4-10 miles

    Route: up and back, or loops

    Brief desc.: one of the newest trails in town with forest and mountain meadows views.

2. Green Lake Trail

    Degree of difficulty: moderate to difficult

    Length: 4 miles

    Route: out and back from town

    Brief desc.: provides aggressive and steeper trail from Crested Butte. It proceeds through a private property, so you are required to stay on trail. Once you get to the lake, enjoy your time, have a picnic lunch, and turn around to the same trail you came.

3. Woods Walk to Lower Loop

    Degree of difficulty: easy

    Length: about 6 miles round trip from Crested Butte with option to make it shorter

    Route: Kebler Pass or Butte Avenue to Peanut Road

    Brief desc.: part of the Woods Walk passes through aspens that is especially splendid during wildflower season. When the trails break out of the aspens into sagebrush, you will see Peanut Lake and its distinctive island.  

4. Lost Lake Trail (and Beckwith Pass)

    Degree of difficulty: easy to moderate

    Length: 5 miles

    Route: out and back

    Brief desc.: you will hike through stands of conifer and aspen to the summit of the pass. The trail crosses numerous streams and also brings hikers close to high mountain lakes. When it’s raining, avoid the pass trail.

5. Wagon Trail

    Degree of difficulty: easy

    Length: 6 miles round trip

    Route: parallels Kebler Pass, but above the fray

    Brief desc.: parking is available near the trailhead but make sure to pull fully off the road. The trail itself is well above the road that has easy access to Splains Gulch.

6. Lower Loop Trail

    Degree of difficulty: easy, ADA accessible for 1 mile

    Length: 2.5 miles  

    Route: out and back or loop

    Brief desc.: the first mile will be on private land, so please stay on the trail.

7. West Maroon Pass

    Degree of difficulty: moderate to strenuous and long!

    Length: 24 miles round trip

    Route: out and back

    Brief desc.: the more popular trail in Crested Butte. It connects to Aspen, well signed, where the total elevation gain is 1,450 feet. 

8. Crested Butte Summit Trail

    Degree of difficulty: moderate/difficult

    Length: 1.25 miles

    Route: one way, then hike down the mountain for about 6 miles or take a chairlift.

    Brief desc.: you will hike to the summit of Crested Butte Mountain through tall timber, across tundra and up a boulder field at the end. Once at the summit, enjoy spectacular views in all directions. 

9. Snodgrass Trail

    Degree of difficulty: moderate

    Length: 3 miles

    Route: loop

    Brief desc.: the trail takes you through fields of wildflowers and in and out of the aspen and pine groves.

10. Upper Loop Trail

      Degree of difficulty: easy to moderate

      Length: 3.4 miles

      Route: out and back

      Brief desc.: it descends to the Skyland subdivision at the Crested Butte Country Club through meadows and aspen trees. After 1.5 miles you can continue to Crested Butte, to Country Club, or to Brush Creek Road through the Upper Upper Loop Trail.

If you are mountain bikers, then Crested Butte is the paradise for you. After all, the town is known as the birthplace of mountain biking.

2. Stroll Downtown Crested Butte

After a long hike, it’s time to take a break and fill your gas at downtown Crested Butte.

In 2008, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Crested Butte one of its “Dozen of Distinctive Destinations,” which recognizes places that shed light on the nation’s historic past. Locally owned shops and restaurants are housed in beautiful colorful late-1800s-eras storefronts. It makes you want to enter every one of them, or at least take hundreds of pictures of them.

If time permits, go visit the Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum to learn more about the area’s past. There’s also a Historic Walking Tour on certain days. Check if they offer it on the day you visit the town.

There are several public parking spots in town, and since Crested Butte is a small town, it doesn’t matter where you park, you can easily walk to town central, which is the Elk Avenue. Three public restrooms are also within reach.

3. Lunch in town

Although Crested Butte is a small town, it doesn’t mean you can only find a couple of places to eat. The town has numerous lively restaurants, and I don’t recall seeing a single fast food chain in town. Every restaurant has an outdoor seat that occupies parking spaces in front of the restaurants. Again, it doesn’t make traffic jams in town. People just drive slowly to take in the beauty of the storefronts while choosing places to eat. Nobody uses their honks.

We had lunch at The Secret Stash and I highly recommend it to you. Our picky eater son loves their pizza a lot. He built his own with pepperoni and Canadian bacon on a traditional red sauce. I know it’s very basic, but if the basic pizza got two thumbs up, you can’t go wrong with others on the menu. My husband and I ordered Salad Wheels for 2 and it’s just delicious. I wonder what’s their secret for the Greek gigante beans. We also ordered garlic bread for appetizer, and we devoured it in a flash. My son even liked their marinara sauce dip. Servers were friendly, and someone from the kitchen came out to ask if everything was good. I saw him move from one table to another. What friendly people we found in the restaurant!

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For dessert we moved to Niky’s Mini Donuts. My son had his eyes set on this place when we walked to town. Their mini donuts were the best! I like the size because I didn’t feel guilty eating it. Haha..

Other restaurants, distillery, bakery in Crested Butte that you might check:

–  Montanya Distillers

– Teocalli Tamale

– Camp 4 coffee

– Third Bowl Homemade Ice Cream

– Ryce Asian Bistro

– Django’s Restaurant & Wine Bar

– Slogar

– McGill’s

– Last Steep Bar & Grill Soupcon Restaurant

4. Driving around Crested Butte & Mt. Crested Butte

After lunch and much needed break, we drove around town and to Mt. Crested Butte. Mt. Crested Butte is where you find most of the lodging for the area, from condominiums to hotels & spas, and it is also the location of vacation homes for some people.

Wildflowers were blooming like crazy around the vacation homes. When we went to the end of Gothic Road before it turned unpaved, we found a field of wildflowers on the left with valley and mountains as the background. It’s truly breathtaking!

5. Ride the Mountain Express

If you are too tired to drive, take a Mountain Express, a free town shuttle that runs a loop through town, counterclockwise, then back up the mountain to the ski base area and Mountaineer Square. Get off at every stop, take a walk around until the next bus comes. However, the bus does not stop at non-designated stops and pets are not allowed. Alcohol is also prohibited in the shuttle.

Where is Crested Butte?

When you look at the Colorado map, Crested Butte is located at the end of Highway 135, somewhere in the southwestern part of the state. The closest city to Crested Butte is Gunnison, which is about 28 miles to the south. Another town that is close to Crested Butte is Aspen, which can be reached during summertime either by hiking or biking for about 11 miles and slightly longer for biking.

Crested Butte started as a mining town in the 1880s. It was once called “the town that wouldn’t die” because it survived the booms and busts of Colorado’s mining days. Today, Crested Butte is known as a 4-season resort town, but the feeling is different from its neighbor ski town Aspen.

There are no traffic lights, no chain stores, and no high-rise buildings in the town, but you will fall in love easily with Crested Butte once you walk or drive through the town. Moreover, people of Crested Butte are friendly.

Driving times to Crested Butte

For driving times, allow about 30 minutes from Gunnison, 2 hours from Montrose, 3 hours from Grand Junction, 3.5 hours from Colorado Springs, or 4.5 hours from the Denver International Airport.

Driving Directions to Crested Butte

Crested Butte is around 230 miles southwest of Denver. From Denver International Airport take I-70 west, exit onto E470 and continue west, then take Highway 285 S to Poncha Springs/Salida. Head west onto Highway 50 over Monarch Pass to Gunnison, and go north on 135 to Crested Butte.

From Colorado Springs take Highway 24 west. When it junctions with Highway 285, go south to Poncha Springs/Salida. Head west onto Highway 50 over Monarch Pass to Gunnison, then go north on 135 to Crested Butte.

From Grand Junction take Highway 50 S to Montrose, then continue east to Gunnison. Go north on 135 to Crested Butte.

From Montrose head east onto Highway 50 to Gunnison, then go north on 135 to Crested Butte.

If you come from North Texas like us, here’s your driving directions:

From the Dallas /Fort Worth area to Crested Butte is about 833 miles or 13.5 hours with a destination in a different time zone. You can go straight or spend a night in Amarillo to start fresh the next morning.

Take Highway 287 to Amarillo, then turn to 385 to Dalhart. Continue on 87 to Raton in New Mexico before you turn onto I-25 all the way to Colorado. Once in Colorado, take exit 56 from I-25N, and keep going northwest onto CO-69 N to Poncha Springs. Then head west onto Highway 50 over Monarch Pass to Gunnison, before going north on CO-135 N to Crested Butte. You will drive to higher elevation, so don’t forget to give your car a check up before hitting the road.

I hope this guide to Crested Butte summer activities will help you, when like us, you only have a day in town. Enjoy Crested Butte!