Come July, Crested Butte Wildflower Festival will celebrate 40 years ー a colorful tradition that has contributed to the town’s reputation as “the Wildflower Capital of Colorado.”

A week before the festival, another Colorado mountain town will look to grow such a reputation.

Breckenridge Wildflower Week is set for July 2-12, the first of what is hoped to be an annual event celebrating the blooms across nearby meadows, forests and high alpine.

Wildflower Week continues a local effort to showcase the flora and make it more of a tourism driver. Last year, Breckenridge Tourism Office launched Wildflower Watch, a web tool updating prospective visitors on blooms, and the town’s Open Space and Trails program led guided hikes. Those will be part of the festive week that will also feature family-friendly bike rides, live music, yoga, forest bathing, farmers markets and plein air painting amid the flowers.

The festival is in collaboration with Open Space and Trails along with local arts groups that have long been focused on wildflowers, said Kerry O’Connor, the tourism office’s public relations manager.

“We were thinking we should try to do a wildflower festival, because this is so worth celebrating and telling people about,” she said. “We do have such great wildflowers here, and I don’t know if that’s something Breckenridge has really been known for.”

Locals have known, of course. They’ve known sites like Illinois Gulch and Cucumber Gulch, along with Baldy Mountain, Little Mountain and the high-alpine likes of Horseshoe Bowl and Black Powder Pass ー “excellent wildflowers across a lot of different types of terrain,” O’Connor said. “And it’s nice because you don’t really have to drive far to go see them.”

Wildflowers will be the main draw of Wildflower Week, of course. “But how fun if there was more of a festival feeling in town,” O’Connor said of organizers’ thinking.

That will be the case amid decorated storefronts and flower-inspired cocktails by Breckenridge Distillery. It’s just one business planning specials and expressing excitement, O’Connor said. 

“It was a difficult winter for everyone up here, and I think everyone is looking for a morale-boosting moment,” she said. “It seems like Wildflower Week is helping to grow that.” 

Like other Colorado ski towns, Breckenridge is feeling an economic hit in the wake of historically low snow. Winter lodging was down 13%, “which is big,” O’Connor said. “We really rely on winters.” 

Wildflower Week helps with a shift, she said. “It really does lean into that year-round messaging.” 

But historically low snowpack has summer ramifications, including when it comes to wildflowers. 

Around Breckenridge, peak blooms are typically expected closer to the end of July. Forecasting a much earlier bloom, local naturalists advised hosting at the start of the month.

The Crested Butte Wildflower Festival is set for the next week, July 10-19. Not that Breckenridge is trying to compete, O’Connor said.

“We respect Crested Butte so much and hope this can maybe be a complement to their festival,” she said. “If people want to go on a big wildflower excursion, maybe they’ll come to Breckenridge first and then pop over to Crested Butte.”