Crested Butte Skiing & Snowboard Terrain

Crested Butte Mountain Resort has pretty good ski and snowboard terrain for beginners and intermediates, but the signature of Crested Butte is the delightfully gnarly terrain for experts. During good seasons when the snow is really flying, the double black diamond terrain absolutely goes off. Along with Silverton and Telluride, Crested Butte Mountain Resort has the best steep terrain in Colorado. The only snag is that the rocky steeps require significant snow cover. It usually takes until mid to late season for the terrain to fully open.

Crested Butte is a medium sized ski resort. It officially has a skiable area of 1,547 acres, of which 542 acres is the extreme zone.

Crested Butte Lifts

Crested Butte skiing and snowboarding used to be renowned for its absence of crowds and distinct lack of lift lines, but the acquisition by Vail Resorts has changed that. Of course it’s all relative, and the Crested Butte Mountain Resort is still uncrowded compared to the big name Colorado ski resorts close to Denver. Lift lines generally are only problem at the base area, with exceptions being peak holiday weekends and the North Face surface lift on a powder day when powder hounds line up to hit the Extreme Limits.

Crested Butte has four express quad chair lifts which cover a large part of the terrain, so intermediates could just ride these lifts and get a lot of mileage in each day. The rest of the lift infrastructure consists of three fixed grip quads and other slow chairs, a couple of surface lifts that service the double black diamond terrain, and a few magic carpets for the little ones. The placement of the lifts is reasonably good. The only limitation is that you have to ride multiple lifts to ski the steeps which seems to be a common affliction at North American ski resorts.

It's anticipated that Vail Resorts will continue to develop the lift infrastructure.

Lift Tickets

As with other Vail Resorts, lift passes provide very good value if you purchase an Epic Pass as a multi-day or season pass (Epic, Epic Local and Epic Australia), which provides full access to Crested Butte. Otherwise expect to get gouged if you rock up to the ticket window to ski for just a day or two, and with respect to value, you don’t get the same infrastructure compared to some of the major Colorado ski resorts.

Crested Butte used to be renowned for free lift passes early in the season, but unfortunately a free lift ticket is now only available on opening day. The end of the season at Crested Butte used to be famous for skiing in the nuddy, but that too is no longer thanks to lots of naked crusty butts involved in a melee and inappropriate conduct! However if you want to celebrate the end of the season (or any part of the season) by skiing or snowboarding in a bikini, you can go for it!

Crested Butte Snow

The average snowfall per season at Crested Butte Mountain Resort is 234 inches, which has shrunk from 300 inches back in 2012. The seasons are rather inconsistent. Some seasons CB gets bucket loads of snow, whilst other seasons are a shocker. Thankfully the quality of the snow is usually really good as Crested Butte is often a little colder than some other areas of Colorado.

Early season or during lean years, Crested Butte Mountain Resort still manages reasonably well. CB can rely on manmade snow which covers 19 percent of the mountain and includes the green slopes, many of the blues, and even a steep groomed black run. The resort’s ability to farm snow and groom is also very impressive. CB have employed staff from out east, so they know a thing or two about managing slopes without fresh powder.

Crested Butte Skiing - Beginners

Crested Butte is very well set up for beginners. The first-timers area is located at the base with a few magic carpets for the kids and short mellow runs off the Peachtree Lift. Beginners can learn in peace here without hoons whizzing past.

The next progression is onto the Red Lady Express and Painter Boy lifts where there are a multitude of green trails to choose from. Beginners can also ride another couple of lifts and take meandering trails down the mountain.

For the Intermediate

There are better ski resorts in Colorado for intermediates. Nevertheless for a modest sized mountain, Crested Butte skiing and snowboarding is more than satisfactory for most intermediates.

There are lots of easy blue runs off the slow Prospect and Gold Link lifts, or intermediates can do fast laps off the East River and Paradise lifts.

Crested Butte has various lovely steep groomers where you can let your boards rip. Strong intermediates could also tackle International, a groomed black run where you can really fly and scare the bejeezers out of yourself.

Terrain Parks

Crested Butte Mountain Resort has an easy skier/boarder cross course and a few terrain parks. The beginner terrain park is located off the Painter Boy lift, providing small jumps and hits for novice shredders. Just over the rise is another terrain park that mainly consists of rails and boxes, whilst the Lower Twister Terrain Park has medium to large sized jumps.

Advanced Boarding and Skiing Crested Butte

Advanced terrain is not the forte of Crested Butte. There are very few single black runs, so advanced riders may experience a bit of déjà vu. International is the highlight and there are also a handful of short black mogul and tree runs nearby such as Twister and Robel’s.

Expert Ski and Snowboard Terrain

There is a big leap between the advanced terrain and the double black diamond terrain, which is true experts’ terrain and much of it is extreme terrain; the type of runs you’d love to send your ex-wife down! There are no groomed runs to bail out to in case you lose your nerve, there are only a few warning signs, and it’s only minimally patrolled. Trail names such as “Body Bag” (not officially listed on the trail map) and “Dead End Chutes” give an indication of the gnarliness of the terrain! Joys to be found include steeps in excess of 50 degrees, nasty trees, narrow chutes, bowls and cliffs.

Route finding can be a little tricky if you’re not a cliff hucking extreme rider. A lot of lines can’t be scoped from a lift, and even if you follow other tracks there’s a good chance that they’ll lead you over a cliff considering the calibre of intrepid riders at Crested Butte. You used to be able to download the Extreme CB app which had detailed maps of the double black areas and these will hopefully be incorporated into the EpicMix app. However your best bet for orientation to the area is to sign up with ski school for the CB Steep Guides program. The Extreme Limits terrain is the ducks nuts. The runs aren’t super long, but your heart mightn’t survive if they were any longer. It’s serviced by a surface lift and much of the terrain will also require a degree of hiking and traversing to get to the untouched rewards. Closest to the lift is The Glades, the friendliest part of the terrain which understandably gets tracked first.

The High Lift, another surface lift, provides access to steep terrain on the Headwall that is almost equally challenging. Teocalli Bowl is another rite of passage and is worth the 15 minute hike required to get out at the bottom.

Or take the half hour hike up to the Peak to ride the Banana Funnel down to show off to the village and punters on the chair lift, or you can hide in the steep trees. Alternatively a traverse in from the Silver Queen chair will also provide lots of tasty tree skiing and other bounties.

Slackcountry and Backcountry Skiing and Riding

Slackcountry opportunities are non-existent at Crested Butte because it has private land outside the resort boundaries.

However backcountry skiing in the Crested Butte area (not from the ski resort) is fabulous, and the backcountry (the “five fingers”) receives significantly more snow than the ski resort. Irwin Guides offer a multitude of different options for backcountry riding. Trips are customised and you can do just a small amount of skinning or really go for it. You can head over the mountains to Aspen, do other overnight hut trips, or undertake an avalanche safety course.