Amazing Creste Butte Snow and I was There to Enjoy It

From Creste Butte

Me at the top of Paradise Express Lift

Creste Butte got something like 9 inches of snow last week, or so I heard from just about everyone over the last few days. I don't really know the difference between a few inches or 9 (as it relates to skiing) so I usually just nodded my head and gave an approving expression as if I knew 9 inches was a good thing. As we drove in from Gunnison, it was clear what 9 inches does to a town, every rooftop had at least 2 feet of snow on top and the snow banks on the side of the road were at least a full person tall. I just stared out the window and watched the beautiful scenery in amazement. I stopped pointing things out to the rest of the people in the car because there were just too many wonderful things to see. If there was that much snow on the rooftops and on the ground in town, the mountain had to have just as much, that must be what people were so excited about. Then I was thinking, skiing is going to be awesome!

From Creste Butte

We started off today at Red Lady Express lift and did one green slope either Mineral Point or Keystone. My friends and I haven't skied in years so our objective today was to get our ski legs back. At the bottom, near Red Lady Express, we met up with a fellow yogi that now lives in Creste Butte and she took us up Silver Queen Express to what I would consider the "top" for those beginner to novice skiers. (Meaning, we were not in the black diamond area.) We skied down a great blue slope, Paradise Bowl, back down to the Silver Queen Express Lift.

We did Paradise Bowl one more time, at which point I promptly fell within a few seconds of hitting the slope. After huffing and puffing and moving my skies several times, I finally got my skies back on with the aide of a friend. the rest of the run was sketchy, my mind took over and every steep area I psyched myself out and made myself afraid of falling.  I made it down, I'm sure the few people that were behind me didn't appreciate the wide slides from left to right, but what do I care, I made it down.

After lunch we moved to the middle of the mountain and did some shorter blue runs off Prospect Lift and Gold Link Lift. I liked this area, it had some good areas to test my skill, narrow parts and even a few tunnels to go through. After half a dozen runs I called it a day. From where we were, it was an easy ski back to the house.

We are staying at a place right off the slopes so all I had to do was ski down Homeowner and look for a flag which marketed the turn off to the road where the house was. This was so cool, I've never done this before, I saw the flag, turned the corner and then slid into the street and literally skied on the street, down the driveway right into the garage! It was so awesome, talk about ski in/ski out!