Located in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, elevation 8,000 feet. .Talk about a hippie haven, you will not find another town like this one. I think the term “far out” describes this place the best. Besides lots of hippies, Crestone has many Spiritual and Healing centers, Environmental activities, Human potential organizations and the annual Crestone Music Festival is held every August. Located nearby is Valley View Hot Springs, another hippie haven of it’s own!
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I’m in the san luis valley and having a terrible time finding a hook up…anyone have suggestions?
Well the children that go to the Charter School, are very far behind, They are not taught properly, more laid back then anything. I was very disappointed with the school. The lack of education was terrifying. The parents have to blind or completely stupid not to recognize this. By far Crestone is so out of touch with the real world. Lack of work, Lack of community, there is absolutely not one thing for the children to do there.
There is plenty to do for adults, this is not a place to raise children. This is more of a healing ground and go on place. As spoken earlier, really think it over to live there, go visit for a few and move on. Hike smoke a joint, trip, and leave. Do not get trapped into the bullshit. You will not succeed here as an adult or child. I feel so bad and pity the people who are there. It is not a beautiful place, if you really want to see Colorado go to Manitou Springs, Garden of the Gods, Aspen, along 70 is absolutely beautiful. Think your vacation over, much better spots to go to.
First of all, the “Crestone” community is, of course, including the majority population which live in the Baca, to the South of the actual town. Just to clarify for those who were not sure …
Think of Crestone like an amplifier of your thoughts. Think of Crestone as a place where your personal issues will be brought to a head, whatever they are. As a result, there are folks who exist in a state which could be described as “raw” or opened without defenses, or simply just freaked out. Also, there are those who have found comfort in knowing themselves, and they do just fine. If you enjoy introspection, it is the right place.
I do not dispute any of the postings I find here – they are all valid, from a certain point of view. Most poignant for me is that it is a very challenging place to raise children.
One day I will return to the area, for some period of time, to live or to visit, and that trip will be personal. The community is that which you build, which could be said anywhere, and as with anywhere, one must look before they leap.
I was in Crestone this past weekend, and I must have had my head in the sand, because I thought it was a charming quiet town. Granted November is not when the music festival happens, but I loved it. We stayed at the inn and it was lovely, clean, and the inn-keepers were wonderful. As a visitor, I have to say I have raved about it to my friends. No one offered drugs or sex, and I did not smell body odor on anyone.
Hippy? Isn’t that word a bit dated? I moved to the Baca about 2 years ago. It is a large area adjoining the small town of Crestone. Maybe this website is tailored only to unemployed, back to the earth types, I don’t know, but if you can afford to live here, it is wonderful. Not much work around here unless you are in the trades.
How many spirit based towns are there in the U.S.? Anywhere there is a lot of energy it can swing either way to the positive or negative. Here is a catalyst for social change blooming. Help or don’t. This could be an incredible sustainable community with a little love and urgency. Eventually when globalism disentegrates small communities will be all that matter. Good luck ,all!
Well, Folks…Crestone is like any other small community which has been “discovered”
by the “new age”. The folk singer Greg Brown said it best..”Where people used to live thier lives, Now the restless come and go”
I lived and worked 5 years there in the ‘early days’ and even then it was a love/hate relationship. I agree with a posting here stating “you will face your own issues”.
I still have deep love for many fine friends of those days though I was “ejected” for
political reasons. The area is not as hip as one may think. As Pogo said..”We have met the enemy and it are us” Good Luck, Crestone…take a deep breath.
I,m an old Durango hippie looking for some peace and quiet. I thought about moving to Paonia for this reason. I,m not wealthy,and I work hard for what I have. But after reading some of the comments on this web site I do not want to live around angry,foul mouthed,ignorent podunk!!! I,m sure thier are a few nice folks in the area. But no one wants to move to a town were ignorence and violence seem to go hand in hand. It is a shame that a town that sounds as nice as yours can be dirtied by such uncouthed twits.
Well well well, what do we have here a failure to communicate. I am the one the only crazy bitch to tell it like it is, Yes so much is true of what you all say. Like Oh My God. It is a dirty town, a strange ville, a smelly town, much chaos. The Baca is out of the way, but they stroll in, they talk, they hide, yes drug use is here. Yes there is no child care, Yes there is things for the adults to do. Yes we have the masked man wondering in, stealing, raping we are a town, corrupt cops, we try to fit in, but we can’t! We hide from the government, we cry, we laugh… There is crazy Amy she will fuck anyone for a drink. Good looking girl, crazy as they come. You have the bar, yes full of METH
Ah!!!!! I just discovered this very liberating site. How interesting to read the various opionions. There is something deeply relaxing in reading similar resonance. I loved “dead ends” commentary on the educational scene here. As I still live here, although not for long, I don’t want to hurt too many feelings ; in the school community my voice is already well known. It is sad here in respect to the children. I heavily caution people not to move here if you care about your childrens education.It is pathetic and deeply sad to me what goes on here. The saddest part is it is only a mirror of the families who are part of the community. Those that have chemical dependences and put their addictions before their children, those that are on a spiritual “path” who put their “search” and gurus before their children, and those who are ignorant and who only know their own childhood experience and havent bothered to expand their knowledge and learn about some of the beautiful and successful models for holding the children in the educational world. They are trying to reinvent the wheel here and the children are the guinne pigs. There are the people who are calling a spade a spade but they are the minority and its hard to be heard in a sea of “origional thinkers” and people who are holding the view that Buddah nature lives in all of us. Including insane teachers that are harming the children. It’s too bad as it is peacefull and beautiful here with the potential to have the children grow in freedom away from bigger city media propaganda. Although it seems that the children get their share of daily Disney brainwash perhaps inpart because there is so little to do and the adults get lazy. Hell you can stay in your pagamas all day and nobody would notice. I might like Crestone at 50 when the children are grown. I had a specific purpose when I arrived here, its done and now my partner and I can’t wait to leave as the children are bigger and the consciousness at the school is shockingly low. They use their testing scores, which are averages, to defend their worth but it’s a load of crap. There are some good and decent things going on but the whole picture and overwhelming feeling is that it’s not working. We homeschooled but that is almost more challenging to parents and children because there is so little to do and my children were’nt thriving so they begged to go to the charter school. My 6 year old came home talking about drugs the other day as the teacher is passing out “say no to drugs” propaganda. I personally don’t see Watts, L.A. in Crestone and even though I feel like children could at least have a sense of protection from these things here, protection from their minds I mean, the school itself is bringing these concerns prematurly to them when they don’t have any awareness in the first place . It’s heartbreaking. We would leave today if we could, have to hang in there a few more months.Take a look at the local student who wrote in defence of his/her school on this site. Perhaps it would have made a thoughtful impression if their was any integrity in what was said, if there was any correct spelling and if every other work wasent fuck. That person is a perfect example of the education of the young people here. They do have some great experiences offered to them. Going to Japan with the help of one of the local cults, mentorships and some service projects, usually inspired by having to raise money for a far flung adventure. But really, the school is a disaster, and the smart and or financially able get their children out of here as soon as their big enough to boarding school or wherever else they go. Crestone has it’s obvious purposes for those who come here. There is little distraction and that is a good thing. It is intensely masculine and roots out your issues like nobodies business. If your dream is to build your own home affordably, alternativly, great. If you think you need a guru, ie a mommy or a daddy, to give all your power over to a let control your life, great come on down. If you love this climate, sunny, dry (good for alergies and asthma) cactus ,no bare foot walking we’ve got that going on. If you just feel that you must be here but you just don’t know why ,trust, the worst that could happen is that you might what? die. On some level that probally will happen, it’s not so bad really! Hey Love the one your with- including yourself. That’s my favorite hippy comment to end with.
almost sorry I found this site. Lived in Crestone Before the Baca. There was nothing back then. the locals took a while before accepting you, but they were at the very least kind. There was one family and you know who you are, who took me in and treated me as one of their own. The old man has always been someone who I have admired and will never forget. To them I say thanks. I will always remember my stay in Crestone with great fondness.
Regarding the bar: First, it is not a bar, but a restaurant. We had a vote and prohibited bars. The owners recently came before the town board and had their license renewed. There were no substantial negative comments even from close neighbors. No doubt there is negative energy from time to time inside, after all, the people there are drinking and they are not specially selected for being cool or friendly; the Silver Palace is not Cheers, but remember, there never was a Cheers. Cheers is a TV show in reruns. Most of the working people here do construction work, a few of them drink. It is unreasonably to have no place at all for them to hang out. Bottom line, the “bar” experience is optional.
Yes, Jason, I remember you. Hope you did well in New Mexico. A very interesting page, this is. Crestone itself is rather small old mining town, 76 souls. It was described by one critical visitor as a “bunch of shacks in a grove of cottonwood trees”. Many of the houses in the main part of town are owned by summer people who may only be in a few weeks out of the year. There are a few new homes, some owner built and pretty interesting. The mountains are awesome, but steep and inaccessible. Crestone is where the stores and restaurants are. South of town is a small subdivision, the Baca Grande, with a few hundred houses and a number of small spiritual centers. There is some construction work, some on strawbale houses, and a few other jobs but as said, it is not a rich or prosperous place.
Generally it is a quiet, peaceful place, but probably not for the ambitious or critical; it’s a work in progress. The weather and bugs can be quite awful but sometimes, as in the current drought, the bugs let up and it can be warm and pleasant even in the winter.
Gosh, it is sad to see that one person is posting nasty comments while putting down the place where I have lived and called home the past 4 years (I would guess about 10 or so of the negative comments found here are all from the same person).
I can see that this person did live here once (or maybe still does) and must have been burned real bad by somebody, and that is sad in itself, yet such a thing happens everyday to many people in most places on the planet. I do know a handful of people here who did get screwed and some of them left, and I feel bad for them. I know that many of the hard feelings in this area are connected to POA, which runs the Baca, with several of the locals feeling a different form of government should be developed. But it should be noted the town of Crestone is not a part of the POA or its problems.
Overall, the most important thing is that Crestone and the Baca is not anything like I’ve been reading here, and it is a shame, because Crestone and the Baca is an excellent, peaceful place, with the overwhelming number of people who live here very positive and kind. This section of this web site is suppose to be for hippies looking for a place to live or just visit, and Crestone is no question one of the more comfortable places for hippies and their families to live or hang out in. It is a shame one or two persons has made it look otherwise, but believe me, most of this garbage talk isn’t close to the truth.
I know I must be one of those long harried freaky looking hippies that I read negatively about in this comment section. If you see me on the streets of town (and you will if you visit), I have very long hair and a long beard, I know my looks might scare those average, right wing American types who voted for Bush, since I know how such folks think of a person who looks different, but looks are deceiving and there are many men in this town, including non hippies, who looked just like me. Yes, Crestone might have some hippies who are dirty and many who are poor, but it also has other types of hippies, too. There is a wonderful blend of hippies here, young and old, who cause no harm to anybody. This web site is a hippy site, right? Well, the person who wrote that stuff below for sure can’t be a hippie and talk in that way about other hippies, nor talk in such a way about Crestone. Hippies cover a range of different kinds of people, all true hippies know this and are not bothered by this fact, and they would never make such a post at a hippie web site about “dirty hippies†– please! In a nutshell, this site has been spammed by a non hippie or two who hates Crestone and hippies in general. If you are a true hippie and you are reading all this, I know you already get my drift on this, more than likely before you even read what I have to say here. Most hippies can spot a fake a mile away.
I grew up in NYC – now there is a bad place to live (but a great place to visit). In Colorado, before living here, I also lived in Telluride and Manitou Springs. Telluride was a long time ago – late ‘70s early ‘80s, it had hippies then, mainly poor ones, now days I guess only rich hippies live there. Manitou was far out, a good hippie town with older hippies, but Colorado Springs was too close by. Around the start of the 21st century I wanted to get back to living in a true small, isolated town like Telluride again, but a town that was more real than that place. I got to know several of Crestone’s locals after visiting the cool naturist hot springs down the road from town several times, and started to learn about this place and moved here 4 years ago. This area is different, no question, there really isn’t another town like Crestone in the US. The town’s beautiful mountains are alive and full of positive energy; most of us feel the great vibes coming from them.
Are there a lot of hippies in this town? Yes! Anybody who would say otherwise is totally blind! But there are a lot of other good, non hippie people living here too. If you don’t like hippies, should you live here? – – NO! Is this an overall good place with some problems, yes.
Crestone and the Baca are very liberal, more so than most other US towns, period. Hell, Bush only got 11% of the vote here the second time ’round (yet he won Colorado, but only thanks to the farmers out east on the Great Plains)! But you must remember that there are many people out there in the world who hate liberals, and hippies are liberals. So many people hate Crestone simply because of all of these far-out liberal people who live there. Buddhism, Hinduism, and other Eastern religions are the town’s main religions; could this also be why some don’t dig the place? Such an unchristian US town, with many folks from all over the world living here, oh my, how terrible!
What about Crestone’s weather, is it really as bad as some claim? Depends on what you are used to. It does get very cold here most winter nights and many spring and fall nights, too. But, as the town’s weatherman (amongst other things) I can tell you that it has never once been -40°F (as somebody wrote below) ever in Crestone, it’s never even been officially -30°. Has it gotten colder than -20° some nights? Yes, but in most locations in Colorado that will take place on a few nights in the dead of winter anyway. But okay, it is a bit colder here at night than even most other locations elsewhere in the State, but it does warm up almost every winter day, too; with more sunny summer days than most other US locations – fact!
I think the most upsetting things I have read here is what has been written about the children of this town and their schooling. You would think from a few of the stories written here about them, that our children are neglected and brain dead, or at least are being taught by brain dead teachers. This is a total lie. My own kids are grown now; they were raised in both Telluride and Manitou Springs. Both of those towns had excellent schools and my children did well in them and grew up fine. Yet after living 4 years here, I wish I had raised my kids in Crestone instead. Two of my grandsons might be moving here this summer, and I think the schools here would be perfect for them, as they will be better off if they do end up here than where they go to school now.
It should also be pointed out that parents in the Crestone area have two choices where to send their children to school. You would never have known that by reading what is stated in the other comments. One choice is to bus our children 15 miles (on average) down the road to the town of Moffat at the traditional public school located there. From what I understand, it is a fine school. Then there is the local Crestone Charter School. Yes, this school is different; with the World Flag flying out front of it. The kids are taught differently, but once again with this being a hippie site and me knowing hippies as I do, I can assure any hippie parent reading this that they would be pleased with the school’s set up. That isn’t to say the school is a hippy school now, but it is different. I know two of the teachers there from the Baca Bunch, a local hiking group I belong to, and they are fine people. Not only are all the children of Crestone and the Baca learning the lessons of life well, the children here are very happy and seem much happier than your average children found in larger towns. In such larger towns, which I used to live in, I saw plenty of unhappy children; I do not see that here. Are there dirty little kids running around here as noted below? Yes, but they are happy and most little kids get dirty when playing in dirt (that being Mother Earth) all day long, and there is a lot of dirt here (open space) for children to play in and get dirty in! But that is a good thing!
One last note about our children, there is no way that one comment left below, full of misspelled words and written by “My Name?†(our spammer could not think up a better name than that?), was for real! Give me a break if you think it was, but that was not one of our children from the Charter School who wrote that nonsense!
In closing, you will not find another location that accepts hippies like Crestone and the Baca does. There are problems here, yes, but all places have some problems and I feel for that non-hippie person who felt she/he had to write out all of those nasty, misleading comments here (my guess is more of this person’s spam will follow, oh well, but I will also write the webmaster of this site to keep a look-out for this, since it isn’t real and such spam makes this site look bad, along with the town).
Crestone is as kind as any place gets! You fellow hippies might find a warmer place to live, or a place that isn’t so isolated, yes, but you will not find better people than who live here, and the bottom line is that hippies are very much welcome here, and there are many of us hippies who would not want to live any place else!
crestone, colorado! what can be said? like any other place it has it’s good and bad, negative and positive stuff to deal with. i guess it all depends on what your looking for?
Lots of interesting comments… and thanks for scaring folks away! The slower we grow, the better… Crestone is like many small towns… local politics, gossips, etc are a down side… the up side is that here you can make your own choices… and experience your own natural consequences… you have two schools from which to choose… we have three restaurants now… two small groceries… and the best climate on Earth… really quite mild… The biggest problem are people who come here expecting others to make their choices for them or to take care of them and raise their kids for them…
When you come here… take a breath… look around… take care of yourself and raise your own kids…
Make your own choices… and be prepared to live with the consequences – positive and negative….
Crestone is an incredible, peaceful place… and we know it… if you’re coming here to be taken care of or to take advantage of us, don’t even come into the valley – she will spit you out like you’re spoilage…
Come here to feel the love the Earth has for a small community… and watch natural consequences in action…
Love to all… my door is open as is my heart…
Umm. I aint stoned but i think crestone is great, and too diss CCS is just wrong , alot of students have been of great succcess most have left the US to go abroad and learn even more, because karen has taught us that we need to learn constantly and that we need to learn the world and its people and to exept all people and you should exept crestone. crestone by itsself is one word sorry two wordizzle’s ” fucking wierd” wierd can be awesome. Dont diss ccs I am doing great and im succesfull so my words “fuck ya’ all” and by ya’ll i mean those who diss the charter. Miss freel, miss hashbarger, dokson, and that guy from buena vista all suck Karen rocks Amulya rocks Mr bean u rock
Hi everyone Peace and happieness to ya.
My new husband and I are comming to visit your town this comming weekend for haloween. We live outside of Vail now, I have discussed moving for some time, but I never knew were? I have not even seen the town yet, just pictures and great things from my friends. I grew up in a small town in arkansas (180) people, and I have been in Colorado for 7. I want to have a small family, and I want to raise my children in a place un touched by the scandels, money, and arraogance that runs our Valley. I am excited to see your beautiful area, and I WILL keep Crestone a secret. Have a peacefull and joyfull day.
Amanda M. Kubby
My wife and I stopped in Crestone about 4 years ago on our way to go backpacking in the mountains nearby. Never in my entire life have I felt such incredibly NEGATIVE vibes. Their was hatred in the air, and it was everywhere. We formerly knew nothing of this town, we simply stopped for gas, and we were very sorry we did.
Our first encounter was in the gas station, with a girl with long red hair driving a white VW bus with Grateful Dead stickers. Being that I met my wife at a Grateful Dead show, and we are both major fans of Jerry Garcias music, we often find other fans of Garcias music to be nice, laid back, cool people. This girl was mean. Just flat out mean and hateful would be the best way to describe her. She reminded me of some of the people who unfortunately attended alot of dead shows – the people who “try” really really hard to look like a hippy, and go out of their way to act weird. However, in reality, they have hatred in their hearts and are simply bad people. They are unworthy of trust, and simply do not “get” what being a hippy is truly about. These are the types of people who gave deadheads a bad name, and true hippies a bad name as well.
I guess it saddened my wife and I to see a town that could have lots of potential being occupied by mean and hateful people who put off vibes of the worst kind. I wish I knew why these people feel the need to be such complete asses. It just doesn’t make sense. There are some people I work with who are right wing Bush supporters with ten times more love and compassion in their hearts than the Crestone citizens we encountered that day, not to mention a million times more intelligence.
After backpacking for a week in the mountains, which as always leaves us feeling joyful and full of life, we unfortunately had to drive through part of Crestone to leave. We saw the red haired girl sitting in the back yard of a big white house with a bunch of people, with various Grateful Dead symbols on and around the house. We couldn’t help but wonder, could these be some of the complete morons who thought that Jerry Garcia was God? Or were they just the fake deadheads who followed the dead by stealing from others, begging for money when they were healthy and able bodied to get a job, starting riots to get into shows for free, etc…..? It was hard to say. But one thing was for sure, we could feel their cold cruel vibes loud and clear. You people should be ashamed of yourselves, ashamed for being such pathetic people hiding behind a fake identity that you come nowhere even remotely close to representing.
As with everything in life, there are always exceptions. So for that reason I assume there are some nice good-hearted people in Crestone, but I couldn’t imagine what would keep a decent person there. Maybe years before it was a great place, and it changed for the worse like all good things? Just like the Haight-Ashbury scene, it was a wonderful place in the early to mid 60’s, then all the jerks like those I described above arrived and completely destroyed the scene. It went from being a safe place where one could find wonderful like minded individuals looking for something different, to a very dangerous place full of rip-offs, rapes, and bad people. Bad people just like those outside that big white house on that otherwise beautiful day.
One cannot help but wonder, if Crestone has a good school, then why do the below postings of Crestone students make them sound dangerously close to being illiterate? It is quite painful to try and decipher their ramblings, and once you do, you find it void of any logical reasoning or rational thought. Parents really should expect more.
With so many people and so little water, how are you going to sustain such a large population in a High Desert setting?
I’ll be moving into town withing the next few months so, we’ll see what happens. I’ll be sure to write a review after the first 6 months. There is a new disc golf course in town which should makeup for any inconvinences I might regret & hopefully i’m over myself enough not to let a few negitive locals ruin my trip…