Video: Seth // Edit: Curtis // Words: Daniel
If you’re looking to do a bucket-list trip, then Crested Butte, Colorado, should certainly be on your short list of places to choose from. Crested Butte in the fall, as the aspens are glowing, should narrow it down a little more. And if you could somehow predict and choose one of the last weeks of incredible riding conditions before the snow really starts falling, but get lucky with a bit of snow to tame the dust, then get to ride some of the most incredible dirt one could imagine…well, you’d be asking for something really special. And that’s exactly what we got.
In mid-September, Seth and I went out to Crested Butte to meet up with our good friend Eric Porter and ride some of the most epic and iconic higher-elevation singletrack that exists in Colorado. While I had ridden a bit in Crested Butte before, it was in 2008. A lot has changed since then, and on that trip, I was merely stopping through on the way to the Pacific Northwest. This time, I was going to get to stay, hang out, and ride for multiple days in an area I had always been fascinated by. Not only that, it was fall - the Aspens were said to be glowing, and the weather was looking fantastic, with cool mornings and mild afternoons.
Getting to Crested Butte isn’t quite as easy as flying into a major city, but the Gunnison airport, just a short drive away, was a real pleasure to arrive at and depart from. The small terminal made it quite easy to get in and out without issue and saved several hours of driving that we would have been committed to otherwise, giving us, essentially, an extra day of riding on the trip. Little did we know, we were going to need it.
