Skiing at Vail is quite spectacular, no doubt about it. That’s why it’s not surprising that the rich and famous come here to ski. The resort is huge, the facilities are great, and from what I saw, the mountain village is pretty cool. Even though I only skied one day here, I was able to traverse the mountain pretty well. Here are my impressions. Please note that I do not ski black diamonds, so I only focus on green and blue runs in my description.
Skiing at Vail
After parking at the Lionshead Square, we took Lift 8 to get up onto the mountain. The Eagle Bahn gondola leaves from the same base but since I’m not a fan of gondolas, I opted for the express lift. Because the blue runs here seemed pretty steep, we decided to head to Lift 2 to access more of the green terrain. From there we had an easy access to the Game Creek Bowl, which I really liked.
- Game Creek Bowl – I spent a good amount of time here skiing here. The Lost Boy run (green) was very nice with beautiful views of the mountain peaks. I also liked Dealer’s Choice (blue), which was pretty gradual and not busy at all. The Meadows run was also great and allowed me to easily get to Lift 4 to access another peak.
- Lift 4 – Mountaintop Express Lift – This area has wonderful green and blue runs. My favorite runs were Swingsville and Christmas.
- Lift 14 – Sourdough Express Lift – Lots of green runs here and beautiful views all around. I particularly enjoyed Sourdough and Flapjack. You can actually ski to the base of Lift 11, Northwoods Express, for a longer run and take the Timberline Catwalk to get back to the Sourdough lift.
It was also lots of fun to traverse the mountain all the way back to the Lionshead Vail Square at the end of the day. Make sure to have the resort map with you to make sure you know which lifts and runs to take.
Parking
Parking at Vail is expensive, so be prepared for it. It costs $30 to park for 4 hours or more. However, there are free parking possibilities if you’re willing to park further away and take a bus. Since we were coming from Breckenridge for the day, we decided to make it more convenient for us and just pay. We parked at the Lionshead parking garage and then walked for about 7 minutes to the gondola area. It wasn’t too bad. It was interesting to walk through Vail Square and see the fancy looking apartments.
Vail Square and Vail Village
After a busy day of skiing at Vail, it’s probably lots of fun to grab a drink or go out to eat at one of the many bars and restaurants around. Since we had an hour long drive back to Breckenridge with the pass ahead of us, we decided to go out in Breckenridge instead. Vail definitely looked like a cool place to hang around, though, so that’s something to consider for next year. Staying in Vail may be a good idea and exploring other nearby ski resorts would probably be fun too. Beaver Creek is not far, so that might be something we’ll do next year.
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