Aspen to Crested Butte Hike

Through-hiking the Colorado wilderness

Aspen is well-known for their celebrity-frequented ski resort. I, personally, do not care about ski resorts. The reason we went to Aspen is for the legendary through hike across West Maroon Pass linking this ski town to Crested Butte. I’ve written about Crested Butte before, so this post will just focus on the hike between the two, with a bonus of pictures from our lovely time in Palisade on the way to Aspen.

Aspen to Crested Butte via West Maroon Pass

Although AllTrails.com lists this hike as 10 miles, I counted closer to twelve. By far the longest hike I have ever done, I was nervous setting out in the predawn stillness. Since this hike is one way (for reasonable people) our friends started in Crested Butte while we started in Aspen, exchanging pictures and car keys when we met on the trail. Amber and I had the longer uphill, but the downhill was quicker and brought us ever-closer to Secret Stash pizza.

One of the most popular hikes in Colorado, the Maroon Bells are massive and impressive, and right off of a parking lot. We were soon able to leave the sunrise crowd behind as we ventured deeper into the mountains.

Throughout the first quarter of the hike, we passed through forests, scrubby bushes, and tundra in the brightening sunshine.

This picture was taken maybe an hour into our journey. I know, I know – they don’t look any closer!

The grade of the hike continued to increase, ranging from a 10-50% incline which made us grateful for our hiking poles. As we slogged our way up the steep, muddy trail, we received a welcome site – Jen and Kim already past the pass and nearing us! We paused to share stories of what the other had in store, then continued on our exhausted, uphill, merry way.

Finally! We defeated the treacherous, thin, muddy trail and approached West Maroon Pass. We hid from the wind and enjoyed snacks, as well as a much-deserved Summit Claw.

Jen and Kim even got to meet three goats when they were at the pass! Returning from a backcountry hunting adventure, man and goat were clearly exhausted, but happy to hang.

As for Amber and I, we were delighted to only go downhill for the remaining 4 miles. We speed-hiked with the idea of pizza on our brain.

SO close to the finish line.

In summary – alpine hiking is hard! But that day I hit over 30,000 steps for the first time ever and I felt quite accomplished once we were in the car. Sadly, we still had a 45 minute drive between the other trailhead and pizza, but the company and views on the road made it all worth it!

Bonus: Palisade

Known as the Peach Capital of Colorado, Palisade is a surprisingly lush valley where you can get a massive assortment of fresh fruit and wine in a super small area. There are more than 25 wineries in this town where the population is less than 3,000 people. That’s insane. Amber and I chose two wineries where we could sip and relax outdoors and had a really nice time before our strenuous hike the following morning.