![]() When conditions are good, you’ll find fantastic snow here. However, unlike most of those resorts, none of Vail’s terrain requires hiking to get to. You won’t find the perilous chutes or couloirs accessible at many other Rocky Mountain resorts. The terrain here consists mainly of excellent, easily lapable glade runs, and you can find some bowl-like skiing and cliffs at the top.īut what you won’t find anywhere at Vail is truly extreme terrain. Blue Sky Basin offers fewer crowds and less tracked snow than other resort areas and feels completely isolated from the outside world. There are a few intermediate slopes as well, which is unique for Colorado bowl terrain.īy the time you make it to Blue Sky Basin, the furthest back of the three mountain areas, you’ll be miles away from Vail’s base village-and any inhabited municipalities. Most of the terrain is steep and ungroomed, so advanced skiers will find a solid workout here. This area is absolutely breathtaking-with above-treeline terrain making up most of the acreage here, you can often see skiers in neighboring bowls miles away. These wide-open ridges, accessible from the top of the front side, span several miles and offer seemingly limitless tracks. While heavily promoted by the resort, the back bowls at Vail truly do offer an experience like no other. The park at Golden Peak offers a superpipe and other major features, while the parks at Avanti consist of smaller features designed for beginner and intermediate freestylers. The front side is also home to Vail’s family of terrain parks. The front side also offers Vail’s only double-black diamond runs, with extremely steep, narrow, thin cover trails under the gondola, and the long, trying Prima mogul run off Northwoods. Advanced skiers will easily find plenty of steep mogul runs and can, with some effort, discover unmarked glade runs with hidden powder stashes. Intermediates will have no problem finding groomed cruisers throughout the front side in fact, parts of the mountain are completely dedicated to blue groomers. Beginners will find gentle slopes off the upper-mountain Sourdough and Game Creek lifts, but all green trails leading back down to the bases are catwalks. Vail’s front side offers a wide variety of below-treeline skiing and defined runs. You can probably spend an entire season here without getting bored. It’s impossible to cover the whole resort in a day, let alone an entire week. Vail’s size is unmatched by any other resort in Colorado. With prices among the most expensive in the industry, this top-of-the line resort competes with the best in the country. Veterans of the 10th Mountain Division were often involved, because they were among the most talented skiers in the nation.Long known for its expansive terrain and charismatic village experience, Vail has built quite a name for itself over the years. Businessmen, dreamers and ski bums were scouring the West for places to build resorts, convinced that the sport would soon boom in popularity. The decade after the war was a heady time for the nation’s fledgling ski industry. Two years later, Seibert was a ski instructor in Aspen. When he was evacuated from the front lines-after three days-doctors said he would never again walk. Seibert was hit by mortar fire in the Appenine Mountains of northern Italy, and his right kneecap was badly damaged. The 10th Mountain Division was charged with driving the Germans from the Alps. The actual war featured its own set of horrors. Based at Camp Hale in the Colorado Rockies, Seibert and hundreds of others endured “d-series training,” during which the unit spent weeks above 10,000 feet in winter, skiing many miles each day carrying 90-pound packs. Some veterans would later joke that the training was worse than the war. ![]()
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