Crested Butte and Kebler Pass

I would like to welcome a new "Follower" to my RV blog with a big THANK YOU to Jessica.  I appreciate that you are taking some time to follow up on our adventures as fulltime RVer's.  I hope you enjoy it.

Wednesday we took a trip north of Gunnison to the town of Crested Butte.  It was only 28 miles to the little resort town, but a wonderful drive with more fantastic scenery.  We had seen a defined scenic byway loop on a map that looked interesting.  It would involve 32 miles on a dirt road.

Crested Butte (elevation 8,908 feet) is a former supply town and a coal-mining camp.  We parked along Elk Avenue which has the main concentration of shops and cafes.  It was a great little town and we spent a few minutes walking along the street doing some window shopping.  We made a stop at the Chamber of Commerce to see what information they had about the Kebler Pass road conditions.  The Kebler Pass is on the 32 mile stretch of dirt road.  The man told us the road had just been opened 2 days prior to our asking and that it was OK to travel on.  We were good to go.

The man at the Chamber of Commerce gave us directions on how to get to the Kebler Pass road and we found it without problems.    The dirt road began almost immediately.  The road was in great condition and we traveled about 10 miles before coming to the pass, which has elevation of 10,007 feet.  There was still a lot of snow up there, although it was old and dingy looking.

We passed several cars going the opposite direction as this road connects Highway 133 to Highway 135.  We were in no hurry as we just drove along enjoying more beautiful scenery in this great state of Colorado.  Once we had crested the pass and gone just a couple of miles the terrain experienced some changes.  We began to see a lot more of the aspen trees, still without many leaves.  There were miles and miles of these nice looking trees.

As we got closer to Hwy. 133, the trees were all leafed out and we saw meadows of green grass.  We even saw a flock of wild turkeys.  They didn't like our car stopping so I could get a photo and they tried to run off into the trees.  They were really quite large.  Might be great on your Thanksgiving table.

Once we got to Hwy. 133 we made a turn to the south to reconnect with Hwy. 50.  This was another nice drive and we passed many ranches and some coal mining operations.  After about an hour we made a turn on Hwy. 92, which would get us closer to our RV park.  At this point we began traveling along part of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.   We will be visiting this National Park on another day.  We also passed another beautiful canyon with what I think is still the Gunnison River running through it.

We connected with Hwy. 50 at the west end of the Blue Mesa Lake.  It is the largest lake in Colorado.  We turned east to our Blue Mesa RV Park and about 15 miles later we were there.  It was a long day but we had so much fun driving on this West Elk Loop Scenic Byway.  We have a couple of more scenic drives lined up for the next couple of days.  Then we will prepare to leave Colorado next Monday.

Until next time.....so long for now!