The Yawp Company in Crested Butte
Yawp Cyclery
This Rec Path is the ugliest trail in Crested Butte.
Earlier in July, the Yawp Company went to Crested Butte for a weekend. We all got blurry immediately.
Crested Butte makes it so hard to go back to wherever you came from that it's actually easy to hate the place. Nonetheless, we made ourselves ride these sickening trails anyway.
Jon, Rebecca, and I rode a new trail called Gunsight that splits off from the Lupine Trail (UPDATE: this trail is now called Lando Calrissian). It definitely needs some buffing out, but chances are that in a year or so it will be one of the best trails around. It's so good! There is one short section of trail where the forest gets so thick that it blots out the sun (more completely even than Mr. Burns could). There's also a strange section that makes you think you've somehow transcended space and time and turned around and are going back the way you came, though you haven't.
Photo: Jon Mikkelson
It's easy to link Gunsight up with the Lower Loop or the Budd Trail for a 13-mile ride that starts and leaves from beer. I mean from burritos. I mean from town.
Another obnoxious Crested Butte trail.
YAWP!
A load of Surly: Karate Monkey, Krampus, Ogre, Instigator
We camped at the end of one of Crested Butte's best trails: Doctor Park. Some very nice people shuttled us up to, and then through, the creek, cutting out a 45-minute dirt road ride. There's nothing wrong with that ride; it's not too steep and the scenery is typical for the area. It's like they took the entire state of Colorado and distilled it down into a single valley. However, as the fire road climb up to the top of Doctor Park is almost offensively difficult, we kindly accepted said shuttle.
The end of suffering: the top of Doctor Park.
If we look this happy at the top of a murderous climb, just imagine how happy we looked at the bottom of one of the best descents around (where our keg of beer awaited us).
A few folks have asked me to describe why Doctor Park is so good, but words fail me. Let's ask my trail partner and life buddy Rebecca why Doctor Park is so good.
"Well first there was these pointy rocks that were powdery like the moon, and I was up in the air forever because of moon gravity, and then I landed and there was this part like fishooooo fishooooo fishooooo where things went by that I didn't know what they were, and then there was this wreck I almost had, and then those strobing trees, and then we were going even faster so fast that we went to plaid, and that unicorn with the golden horn appeared, and then there was that part that was like buddabuddabuddabudda and I ate this bee because I was trying to slow myself down with my mouth like a parachute!"
Nate enjoys his visit to the Doctor.
YAWP!
We rode the 401, too, which is about as scenic a trail as ever there was.
Simon says touch your gear.
Crested Butte is one of those rare places where you can let your mind get all the way quiet. The cell phone service is poor, the air is clean, and every star is visible. There's a line in a Wilco song, "I would die if I could come back new." Somebody tell Jeff Tweedy all he has to do is ride his bike in Crested Butte for the weekend.
You can see more pictures and read another account of this trip here.
Finally, we'll leave you with this.
Jon found a sunglasses mirror in the parking lot and wanted to test it out. Greg though he'd give Jon something to look at. Success! The mirror worked.
Photo: Rebecca and the bee she ate