Bribery in Crested Butte

 We stayed three nights in the Elevation Resort hotel in Mount Crested Butte, descending down into town for most of our meals. We quickly learned to navigate the side streets to find a parking spot near the restaurants on Elk Avenue. The town became to seem familiar after a day or two. On our last morning, we got recognized by the local owners of the bagel place in the alleyway. "It's the opposite of Scottsdale," I said to J, as we ate our bagels on chairs outside the little hut in the alley.

My main accomplishment during the stay was climbing to the top of the Crested Butte ski area, at least to the top of the main chair lift, which was about a two thousand foot climb up to around eleven thousand feet. I hadn't started off that morning thinking I'd climb to the top, but after meandering halfway up the mountain on the dirt roads, and consulting the map, and I decided to push onward. I had to ration my water. Towards the top each step seemed to take all my effort. The last chair lift down from the top was at two o'clock, and as I came within view of it, I looked at my phone and saw it was ten minutes to one. I became convinced that the phone was still on Arizona time, even though I knew that was absurd, and thus I had only ten minutes to get to the chair lift, if I didn't want to walk down the mountain. Ten minutes seemed like not enough time to go the last quarter mile. It turns out of course I had an hour to spare.

The next question was whether I had to buy a ticket at the bottom to ride the chair lift down. That would be awful. Thinking about all this I got flashbacks to climbing in the Transylvanian Alps in 1985. Those were the great adventure times of my youth, so it was good flashbacks, even though it was caused by lack of water and fatigue.

I was prepared to bribe the guy at the ski lift to let me ride the chair lift down without a ticket. I had a twenty dollar bill folded up and ready to go. In Romania it would have worked in the old days. It turns out I didn't need to bribe him. No ticket checking going down the mountain. It was wonderfully steep and gave a great view down along Gothic Road towards the Elk Mountains, the high peaks nearby, which are among the great snow ranges of the Rockies. Aspen is on the other side. I managed to make it down the mountain without fumbling my iPhone trying to take a picture. The picture turned out to be blurry. Foolishness to try. Who cares about photos. I don't have any from mountain climbing in Romania. The memories are better.