| The resort of Vail, located 100 miles west of Denver, has the largest single ski mountain in the whole of North America, boasting nearly 5,300 skiable acres. Combined with its wealthy neighbour Beaver Creek, which is just a 30 minute shuttle bus ride down the road and shares the same lift pass, it is unquestionably the most important ski destination in the United States.
Vail itself is a modern, purpose-built resort that first opened for business in the early ‘60s. The centre of the resort is almost traffic-free and was designed to look like a Bavarian village. With slopes that rise from 2,475m to 3,527m, Vail is serviced by 34 lifts of which 15 are high-speed quads. In US terms it has a maximum vertical drop of just over 1,000m and combined with this relatively small number of lifts it may sound unimpressive by European standards, but these statistics are quite misleading. Unlike many of the European resorts the Vail lift system is fantastically modern and efficient serving such a huge variety of trails for all abilities. The combination of all of this means that Vail qualifies in almost everyone’s Top 10 Best Ski Areas.
Vail Mountain has three sections: The Front-Side, Blue Sky Basin, and the Back Bowls. Most of the mountain is wide open terrain, with trails of all types, from cruising runs off of most Front Side and Blue Sky Basin lifts, to the wide open Back Bowls, glades, chutes & moguls in the Northwoods area, and cornices in Blue Sky Basin. |
