Crested Butte is my Favorite City in Colorado

Moo!  They don't like it when you yell that BTW

Backside of Crested Butte ski area

East River

Emerald Lake - 10,000 ft.

Post-ride, note the recovery drinks

Sorry for the late post guys.  We awoke in Gunnison and it was still cool and rainy.  It took us about 45 minutes to make it to Crested Butte, and the backside of the ski area was covered in clouds.  We stopped at the local bike shop and got the scoop on the local trails: not a good day for riding.  Rains had made all the classic trails too muddy to ride, including the 401 trail.  We decided to drive up the forest road to Schofield Pass where the trailhead was.  It was a long, muddy, cow-filled, rainy but very scenic drive up to 10,707 ft.  Emerald Lake is right there at the pass, and is the source of the East River.  We walked up the 401 trail a little bit and decided it was too cold, muddy, and the weather was unpredictable.  So we headed back to town.  By this time it was close to lunch and the weather had broken.  The low-lying clouds cleared up and the rain stopped and the sun even came out.  So we hit South Crested Butte and rode parts of the cement Creek Trail.  the scenery was unbelievable as it wound up the top of a ridge and flowed along the side through long scrubby wildflower fields.  At the end, the trail bombed down 1000 feet of elevation in just over a mile.  Our brakes were too hot to touch by the time we had made all the switchbacks down, and we enjoyed a well-deserved Dale's Pale Ale before hitting town for a burger.

Backside of Crested Butte after the weather broke

Schofield Pass - the weather cleared about 30 minutes after this