"As the Butte Burns" was a phrase coined by disillusioned young people coming to the mountains and discovering they were in a soap opera where, every day, something weird happens to the cast of players and there is always a drama du jour playing out, like it or not. It's a story about coming of age in the turbulent '60s and '70s, when America is digging itself out of Nixon's regime of war mongering and nature polluting, and kids with a new feeling of entitlement head for the hills. Idealists escape the economic grind of everyday bloodsucking corporate America and find Crested Butte, seeking the freedom, personal expression, and challenge of wintering over in one of the harshest environments on earth. Socially, the place was a radical mix of crusty old-timers who stayed and survived the tough times of the '50s and an onslaught of free-loving hippies and other nonconformists, college students, artists, sports nuts, and intellectuals, all contributing to the living experiment that Crested Butte became. This story recreates that brief time in this magical place, like Camelot, where dreams of justice and equality came true briefly, only to wake up in the morning after the dream expires with a terrible hangover.