Crested Butte - Day 2

We started the day by going to Strand Hill, where a set of trails takes off from a dirt road. Shaun, Chris, Utah and Amos took off on bikes and paws on the Strand Hill trail, while Cindy, Abbey, Quinn, Cailan and I went for a hike on the Canal Trail. The trails here are not real hard, but they present one big challenge: the irrigation canal that lies between the dirt road and the trails. There are two options - you can slog through a muddy bog, wade through the knee-deep water of the canal and pick up the trail right on the other side of the canal, or you can go further up the dirt road, cross over the canal where it runs through a culvert, and bushwhack up a steep, sage-covered hill to get to the trail at the top of a ridge. At the beginning, we all bushwhacked.

Cailan entertained us on the hike by telling us about the Woolly Wiley Wulls, large, green, humanivorous monsters that so closely resemble trees it is hard to tell, when you're looking at a forest, which are the actual trees and which are the Woolly Wiley Wulls. I could never guess correctly, but fortunately Cailan was always able to tell which ones were the monsters so we could steer clear of them. We composed a song about them as we walked. The chorus went like this:

I'm a Woolly Wiley Wull
and I like to eat people
First I bite off all their heads
and then chew on their bones.

The verses told how Woolly Wiley Wulls use chicken for gum and fish for medicine and all sorts of digestive details that were fascinating to the 4- and 7-year-old boys among us but are probably not fit to be recorded in writing. Other highlights of the hike were the wildflowers (some of which could be used as spyglasses for spotting Woolly Wiley Wulls), the M&Ms in my bag of trail mix, and the time when Quinn was walking backwards and tripped over a mushroom.

After we had turned around and headed back to the start, our hiking party encountered the bikers and the dogs where our trails intersected. Everyone was muddy:


We returned to the cabin for lunch, then set out again for a big group ride. This time we were going to do the Upper Loop trail. Not the Lower Loop or the Upper Lower Loop we had ridden the day before, and certainly not the Upper Upper Loop. (I'm not making these trail names up!) We parked in town, near the visitor's center, and rode through some neighborhoods, past Rainbow Park where Chris, Cailan, and I watched fireworks on the 4th of July, till we got to the paved bike path which runs from the town of Crested Butte uphill to the ski resort at Mt Crested Butte. It's much nicer to bike this route instead of on the road, with cars seeming to fly by while you crawl along slowly feeling that your lungs might burst.

Our tandem train met with some difficulties on this hill. The pedals on Cailan's trail-a-bike were very cheap, flimsy plastic ones that tended to come unscrewed from the crankarms. Cailan's preference for pedaling backwards makes this problem even worse, and since we had rigged up straps to secure his feet to the pedals, when the pedals come unscrewed they remain attached to his foot. We had to stop several times to screw the pedals back on, but these stops also gave us opportunity to breathe. Quinn also had some trouble with this climb, because it is so steep and goes on for ever so long. Finally we arrived at the top, and we stopped for a snack. We ignored the gathering thunderclouds.



The Upper Loop trail was very fun, a narrow path running along the side of a ridge, almost hidden by wildflowers. There were some sections where we darted through aspens, and one of these was a very rocky, rooty, steep descent. Most of us walked that part.



We left Upper Loop where it intersected with Tony's Trail, giving us a shorter route back to town. There were some huge boulders we stopped to play on. Shaun rode over the boulder in this picture - alas, we didn't get a photo of that!


Tony's Trail was an easy descent through a meadow on gently curving switchbacks, leading us to a dirt road we took back to town. As we left the dirt road, we had to ride over a cattle guard and under a gate that blocks cars from the road. Quinn went under the gate with ease; our tandem train had to dismount.

We went into town to look for a new set of less-flimsy pedals for the trail-a-bike, which we managed to find even though they are an odd size. We had talked about getting some ice cream but the storm suddenly broke on us so we rushed back to the cars to load up the bikes. Back at the cabin, we all dried off, showered, and dried off again. Then we returned to Crested Butte to fill our bellies at Donita's Cantina. We also walked around and looked at some of the shops, including the rock shop where we saw fossilized teeth of Carcharadon megalodon, an enormous prehistoric shark.

The evening wouldn't have been complete for the kids without a splash in the hot tub, so that's what happened when we got back to the cabin!

Crested Butte - Day 1

On Sunday, August 1, the Diddiwahs and the Scaqabouts were converging on Crested Butte, Colorado. Admittedly, the process was easier for us Diddiwahs, requiring less than 3 hours in the truck, while the Scaqabouts slogged on for nearly 3 days. But by Sunday morning, both families were closing in; we made car-to-car phone calls (when the mountains permitted reception) to share ETAs and coordinate a location to meet up. We thought we would meet at our rental cabin, but we arrived to find the cleaning crew still at work, so we all met at a park at the edge of Crested Butte. Then we headed into town to get some lunch.

We were surprised, and a bit dismayed, to find the main street closed to traffic and lined with tents and booths for an art festival. We had known about the event when we were planning our trip but we'd forgotten about it until we saw the crowds. Luckily we were able to get a table at Pitas in Paradise fairly quickly, and it was only a short eternity until our food arrived. After lunch, we walked leisurely back to our cars, taking time to look at some of the art.

We all went to the cabin and were able to get in. It was a pretty nice rental, a genuine log cabin that was clean and nicely furnished. Its yard was overgrown with wildflowers and small trees, bordered on one side with a shallow creek. The kids and dogs immediately gravitated towards the water while the adults brought suitcases and groceries in the cabins and sorted out who would be sleeping in each of the 3 bedrooms.

Happily, there was enough daylight left that we could go for a bike ride, so we headed back to town to ride the Lower Loop and Upper Lower Loop trails. Chris and I had scouted out these trails on the 4th of July weekend, and we thought it would be a good place for a family ride... and we were right. We parked beside Peanut Lake and -once the bikes were unloaded and shoes and helmets located - rode up a gravel road to the trails. Lower Loop is an easy trail with a section of narrow rocky singletrack near the beginning which didn't present any problem to Quinn, Abbey or our big red tandem pulling the trail-a-bike.


Further down the trail we came to a climb up and over some tree roots followed by a very rooty descent. Abbey navigated this quite well but she came to a screeching stop after the tricky part when she found herself up close and personal with a cow.


The trail meandered beside a creek, which always makes Utah happy. Amos was less interested in getting in the water. Lower Loop trail ends at a road, but we turned left onto that road and started climbing towards Upper Lower Loop. It's a fairly short climb but it's steep, and it proved a little challenging, especially to the flatlanders who hadn't had a chance to acclimate to the altitude... and to Chris and I, crawling along on a big bike with Cailan in tow. We took a break at the start of Upper Lower, reviving the kids with fruit twists and sport beans.

Upper Lower is very fun - it's a tight, narrow trail clinging to a steep hillside. It's mostly smooth, with some rocky sections and a few short, root-infested climbs in aspen groves. There are great views both up the valley towards big snowy peaks and down the valley towards town and Mt Crested Butte.


And then all the climbing pays off with a fun, curvy descent back to the Lower Loop trail. We encountered a few mud puddles along the way, and Cailan ended up "drizzled":


Later, back at the cabin, we enjoyed a dinner of bean burritos around the huge table in the sunroom. The kids all wanted to swim in the hot tub - the water temperature had been lowered to 96 degrees so even Cailan was able to get in and splash around, while the sun set and a late evening sprinkle went unnoticed.