One of the great things about living in Crested Butte is how many trails there are. It took me the better part of a decade to ride most of them, and even now I occasionally ride a new trail. The “tour de axtel”, as I call it, is one of those rides that I don’t do every year, but it’s a good change of pace to riding 401 all the time.
Anyway, Brittany and I headed out from my place on the mountain and went down the Upper loop to Tony’s and headed from town up Kebler pass. Eventually, we took a left at Splain’s gulch, which is a logged area with tons of different unmarked roads, so finding the right one is crucial. My memory served me right, so we hit the end of the road and then made our way through the meadow to hit Baxter’s (aka Carbon Creek).
Brittany, with Carbon peak behind:
We took a left onto Baxter’s gulch, which has some fun sections, although the last part turns hike-a-bike. Brittany heading towards Whetstone mountain:
Then we hit the Don Cook (aka para mi, para ti) trail, which I like a lot because it’s fairly technical:
Brittany:
This leads to the Green lake trail. Green lake is beautiful, but I would have needed a fisheye lens to get all of Axtel and the lake. Brittany was a little over energy bars and ready for real food at this point, but it was all downhill from here!! Besides, now’s a good time to scope out the lines above 
Here’s Brittany nearing the end of our 32 mile, several-hour day on the Green lake trail, one of my favorite “flowy” rides around.
