By Steve Bergsman

Most winter festivals celebrate the same things you would normally do at a popular winter location — eat, drink and ski. But the Colorado ski venue, Crested Butte, holds an annual Songwriters Festival that invites the best country-western songwriters to town to showcase their material. Now that's interesting!

I'm not a country-western music aficionado per se, but I did write a book titled "The Death of Johnny Ace" about the 1950s rhythm and blues singer who played Russian roulette and lost, so I'm something of a musicologist. I was also interested because there is just something special about the people who write the music of our lives.

Before actually walking the streets of Crested Butte, my wife and I pulled off the main road about seven miles south of the town and checked into our accommodations. We were spending two nights at the Pioneer Guest Cabins, a group of eight beautifully outfitted individual log cabins strung along a narrow canyon that followed Cement Creek. The creek has nothing to do with cement other than the consistency of some of the rocks reminded early travelers of it. The original cabins were built in 1939.

Back in 2001, Matt and Leah Whiting bought the property, which had gotten a bit run-down, and pretty much by themselves refurbished and refurnished all the cabins. Some of the amazing woodwork, such as the carved banisters to the loft in our cabin, was done by Matt. We pronounced these cabins some of the best in which we have ever stayed. The original ski hill in Crested Butte was on the mountain slope just behind the cabins.

The Whitings are friendly folk who offer their winter guests (gratis!) Nordic ski equipment and snowshoes for the local trails that begin right at the cabins. On a free afternoon, my wife and I fitted ourselves with snowshoes — they just sit outside the host's cabin in wait for any guest to use — and took off into the woods. It was a beautiful afternoon with the temperature in the teens and the sky above a perfect azure. After an hour we returned to our cabin, slipped some wood into the potbelly stove and sat in toasty comfort. Just down the road there's a small community with a general store and Mexican restaurant if you didn't want to eat all of your meals in the cabin.

Crested Butte, just 10 minutes down the road, was an unexpected treat. The old coal-mining town has a funky, joyful, restored main street with all the good things you expect from a ski resort town — good eateries, coffee shops, bars where you can listen to local music and a variety of idiosyncratic shops — no chains at all.

Crested Butte is really two locations — the town itself and the more modern developments close to the ski slopes, called Mount Crested Butte. A free shuttle bus connects the two places. The town is so friendly that locals leave their bikes unlocked at the bus stops, commute to wherever they have to go and then return in the evening to find their bikes still there.

Although I didn't downhill ski, I got enough outdoor exercise while I was in town. Besides the snowshoeing, my wife and I headed to the Crested Butte Nordic Center for a refresher lesson in the sport. It turned out to be a great idea because Robbie Johnson, our instructor, taught us better techniques than we had employed in the past.

For me the biggest thrill was a new winter sport, fat-tire biking. Fat-tire bikes, sometimes known as all-terrain fat-tire bikes or ATBs, are galloping in popularity. They are like mountain bikes except that these odd-looking specials rest on extremely wide tires with elevated treads - all good for traversing snowy trails.

While we were in Crested Butte I met former snowboard champion Erica Mueller, who had never done fat-tire biking, either, but she said, "Let's do it!" So one afternoon we rented two bikes, threw them in the back of her truck and went out to a popular Nordic trail along the Slate River. At first, when we were just getting used to what the bikes could do and with the trail in ascent, I have to admit we struggled. Indeed, at one point we looked at each other wondering where the fun was. Eventually, we figured it all out, the trail flattened and we really started enjoying ourselves. Fat-tire biking turned out to be a hoot — and some hard exercise. I can't wait to do it again.

But I didn't come to Crested Butte for the outdoor activities. I came for the Crested Butte Songwriters Festival, a 3-year-old annual charitable event where some of the most successful country-western songwriters come to play their own music at different venues across the town.

It's a four-day event, with the songwriters playing individually at a number of main-street venues such as Talk of the Town, The Eldo and Kochevars. Then on the last night they all gather at Crested Butte's Center for the Arts for a final show.

At the Talk of the Town show where local favorite Lizzy Plotkin was playing, I met Cjay Clark, a local restaurateur (The Slogars, where I had dinner earlier that evening) and strong promoter of the event. He introduced me to a number of the songwriters, including local resident Dean Dillon, who has his name etched at the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Jesse Rice, who co-wrote the immensely popular Florida Georgia Line's tune, "Cruise," which I'm told is the No. 1 downloaded song ever. Rice confided to me that he and the boys from FGL were working on a slow song, took a break and then knocked out "Cruise" in something like 35 minutes before going back to the slow number

It was, as Tim McGraw sings, "One of Those Nights," which, I should add, was written by Rodney Clawson, who showed up for the festivities, as well.

WHEN YOU GO

We stayed two nights at the Pioneer Guest Cabins (www.pioneerguestcabins.com) and one at the more luxurious Grand Lodge, which was closer to the ski runs in Mount Crested Butte (www.grandlodgecrestedbutte.com).

The Crested Butte Mountain Heritage Museum is one of the better small-town museums as Crested Butte has a fascinating history: www.crestedbuttemuseum.com.

Crested Butte Nordic Center offers expert trainers and a terrific trail system: www.cbnordic.org.

Big Al's Bicycle Heaven rents fat-tire bikes: www.bigalsbicycleheaven.com.

The 2015 Songwriters Festival will be held Jan. 14 to 18:

www.skicb.com/things-to-do/events-calendar/songwriters-festival.

Downtown Crested Butte, Colorado, offers unusual stores such as this one and no chains. Photo courtesy of Steve Bergsman.

Country-western songwriter Dean Dillon signs a fan's guitar at the Songwriters Festival in Crested Butte, Colorado. Photo courtesy of Steve Bergsman.

Steve Bergsman is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.