Vail hotels collection

The US Army's ski troops once trained in the neighbouring Rockies; some came back looking for a mountain to fit with lifts, and found this one, then nothing but grazing land. The village they built along Gore Creek borrows from the Tyrol: timber gables, white render, painted balconies, pedestrian lanes, a covered bridge over the stream. Behind the summit, the Back Bowls open wide, almost bare basins to the sun; further on, Blue Sky Basin spaces its spruce through the powder. In September, the aspens turn yellow a whole grove at a time: a grove is often a single tree, joined at the root.