5 Days in Vail

Vail has three base areas, and they work as one mountain. Vail Village is the Bavarian-style center, Lionshead is the second base about 10-15 minutes' walk west, and Golden Peak is a short walk east of the village with the ski school and a terrain park. Gondola One, the ten-person gondola that replaced the old Vista Bahn in 2012, is the main lift from Vail Village and takes you to Mid-Vail, where you can branch east or west.

Pick it early. The village side gets crowded from about 9:30am and the first hour is the quietest on the lifts. Rental shops and the ticket offices cluster by the lift base, so rent or collect your gear the day before if you can.

Riva Ridge is the longest run on Vail Mountain, about four miles. It starts high on the front side and ends toward Golden Peak, where the Riva Bahn Express takes you back up. Check its color on the trail map before you commit, because a run this long is tiring even when it isn't steep.

For the rest of the morning, link the lifts around Mid-Vail. The front side is a network of wide, groomed cruisers, which is what Vail is best at. Look at the trail map rather than following the crowd. One run worth finding is Lindsey's, an expert run at the base of the Avanti lift, renamed in 2010 for Lindsey Vonn.

Lunch on the mountain is expensive and mostly forgettable, with one honest exception. Wildwood is a small shelter at the top of the Wildwood Express, and the resort lists Wildwood Smokehouse on its hours page with daily lunch from 10:30am to 2:30pm. Barbecue is the American food you came to try, and a smoked sandwich plus soup is a more filling lunch than a burger at the big lodge at Mid-Vail.

Eat at 11am or after 1:30pm. If Wildwood is closed or packed, the other options on the front side are Mid-Vail and the 10th, which is the upscale one, at the top of Gondola One.

In the afternoon, ski west. The Born Free Express connects the front side to Lionshead, and you can also ski between the villages on green and blue runs. Lionshead is the second base, with the Eagle Bahn Gondola that serves the western side of the mountain, a beginner zone served by the Little Eagle lift, and the ski school. It's less pretty than the village and easier to ride, which is why locals like it.

This is also a good time to check where the Eagle Bahn goes: it climbs to Eagle's Nest Ridge, which leads to Game Creek Bowl and the Avanti Express. You won't need it today, but you will on the days that follow.

Garfinkel's, at 536 East Lionshead Circle, is a well-known après deck at the bottom of the slopes, facing the Eagle Bahn Gondola, and it fills with skiers as the lifts close. Go before 5pm to get a seat on the deck, and drink water first. At 8,000 feet one beer feels like two.

Walk back to Vail Village and find the John and Cissy Dobson Covered Bridge on Bridge Street, the postcard spot of the resort. The village was designed to look like a Bavarian alpine town, and lit at night, with snow on the roofs and the pedestrian streets quiet, it works. You'll notice that nothing here is older than the 1960s, and that's the point: the founders had a ski mountain and an empty valley and invented the rest.

For dinner, Mountain Standard at 193 East Gore Creek Drive cooks over an open wood fire, and it's pricey. Book ahead (winter hours weren't confirmed) or eat later in Lionshead.

Sun Up is about 475 acres, served by the High Noon and Sun Up Express lifts. For a first morning in the bowls it is the gentlest: The Slot is a bowl run that is groomed regularly, so you can feel the scale without the risk of heavy ungroomed snow, and Après Vous has a steeper pitch at the top and tree skiing below.

Get here early: a morning in Sun Up before the lines build is the best way to learn how the bowls ski, whether the snow is soft or firm and how tired your legs are.

China Bowl is the wide bowl in the middle, about 600 acres, served by the Orient Express and the Tea Cup Express. Poppyfields East and West are groomed intermediate runs, the best introduction to bowl skiing if you haven't skied one, while the far side of China, around Genghis Khan, has steep expert terrain and a natural cornice.

Tea Cup Bowl, between Sun Up and China, is the smallest of the seven at about 277 acres, with glades such as Tea Cup Glade, and it's the place to try when powder is fresh.

Siberia Bowl, about 336 acres, is reached from the Orient Express and the Siberia Express, with low-angle glades mixed with large cliffs. Bolshoi Ballroom is the easy way in, with gladed, low-angle skiing, and Rasputin's Revenge is the expert run, with cliffs, couloirs and cornices. It faces south, so snow can change from powder to heavy within hours.

Beyond Siberia, Inner and Outer Mongolia, about 470 acres together, are the remote far end of the Back Bowls: secluded, backcountry-feeling terrain reached by a traverse. They are the farthest point from the village, so only go if you have the legs for the way back.

Buffalo's is at the top of the Mountaintop Express, on the ridge between the front side and the bowls, and the resort lists it with Rocky's Road House Grill from 9:30am to 3:30pm. It is the best-placed lunch for a Back Bowls day: you can ski a loop of bowls in the morning, eat on the ridge and head out again without going back to the village.

It is quick-service comfort food, so a hamburger or a grilled cheese is the order, and the resort says it opens on 13 November.

Sun Down is the biggest of the seven at about 625 acres, and it's the complicated one: runs with hidden entrances, then open bowl skiing with trees and cliff bands. Windows and Never are its signature runs, and the Sun Down Express reaches it directly.

It's an afternoon for advanced skiers who want terrain with trees. If you're an intermediate, spend the afternoon back in Sun Up and China, and try Game Creek Bowl, which the resort calls a stepping stone to the big bowls. If the bowls are closed (common in early season), spend the day on the front-side groomers and Game Creek instead.

A big day in the bowls calls for a simple dinner. Pazzo's Pizzeria still has its original location at 122 East Meadow Drive, at the west end of the Vail Village parking structure. It's not New York pizza and doesn't pretend to be: it's a ski-town pie, big and hot, with beer, and the tables are full of people in thermal layers.

Order early or take it away to your lodging, and check winter hours first. The Village is quieter on weeknights.

From the Mountaintop Express or the Northwoods Express you take Sleepytime Road, the traverse across the top of Sun Up Bowl, then follow the road through the bottom of China Bowl, and a ski bridge below the Orient Express leads on to the bottom of Blue Sky. The road is long and flat in places, which is hard on snowboarders: they unstrap, push and walk. Start from Vail Village or Golden Peak rather than Lionshead, because the distance to the basin is shorter. Blue Sky is the last part of the mountain to open on powder days, and a line builds through the morning, so be early.

The Skyline Express is the main lift into the basin, and as it climbs you can look across at Lover's Leap, the basin's best-known expert run. Leave it to experts, but do look.

The rest of the runs off Skyline are a better bet for most people: groomed glades, wide gentle pitches and tree runs that stay soft long after the Back Bowls are tracked out. Earl's Bowl has a mild pitch that intermediates will enjoy, In The Wuides is a wide open area, and CJ's Glade is nearby.

The second lift, Pete's Express, serves Pete's Bowl, where every path funnels back to the bottom of the lift. The lower part of the bowl is flat enough that following earlier tracks saves energy in heavy snow.

Give it the afternoon. The area has just two main lifts, so count laps rather than runs, and keep track of the time you need to get back: from the bottom of Blue Sky you have a long traverse and a lift ride before you reach the front side.

Belle's Camp is the lone lunch outpost in Blue Sky Basin, a small lodge reached from the bottom of Pete's Express along the cat track toward the Skyline Express. The resort lists it as lunch only, around midday. Think of it as a place to stand and eat something hot, not a restaurant, and go before noon or after 1:30pm to beat the rush.

Bring a snack and water in your jacket pocket. This is the one day when you can't just pop back for lunch.

The way home is the part nobody warns you about. From Blue Sky, the way back is the Orient Express (the same lift that serves China Bowl), which lifts you to the top of China Bowl, and from there you cross back over the ridge. Then you ride and ski your way back down to Vail Village or over to Lionshead.

Leave the basin by about 2:30pm in January, when the days are short, or earlier if the legs are tired. If you're still near Pete's at 3:30pm, you'll be skiing the last runs in the shade.

Express Lift, at the base of Gondola One, is the resort's own après bar, open 11am to 5pm, and the resort says it has doubled its lineup to more than 50 performing artists in 2026/27. The DJs play from Friday to Sunday, 2:30-5:30pm, so on a Wednesday it's a drink and a seat in the sun, which is probably what you want after Blue Sky.

Don't plan anything after it. Go to bed early: the next day has an alarm.

Avon is the town at the foot of Beaver Creek, and the Riverfront Express gondola, opened in 2007, connects it to Beaver Creek Landing and the Lower Beaver Creek Mountain Express lift. You can park in Avon or take the bus to the gondola, which saves driving up the mountain road. The ride puts you at the base of the ski area without traffic.

It's a good way to get a feel for the area: Beaver Creek's village sits at about 8,100 feet, the same altitude as Vail, so you don't have to acclimatize again.

Beaver Creek is best known for the Birds of Prey downhill, which hosts the men's World Cup race early in each December. Beaver Creek also hosted the Alpine World Ski Championships in 1989, 1999 and 2015, and the resort has 167 trails, 28% beginner, 38% intermediate and 34% advanced and expert. The race course is a real mountain run, with a steep, icy pitch that makes the skiers look small.

The Birds of Prey Express lift serves the course. It is expert terrain, and whether the race trails are open to everyone depends on the date and the snow, so ask at the lift and read the trail map before you plan a run on it. The cruising runs around it are easier and still show you the scale.

Beaver Creek's best-known tradition: at 3pm every day, freshly baked cookies are handed out at the base of Haymeadow and Centennial, according to the resort. It's a small thing, but it gives the day a pleasing structure, and it's the reason families end their day here rather than skiing the last run at Vail.

Warm chocolate chip cookies and cold hands: it's the American ski day in one image. Be there at a minute to three, because the queue forms. For lunch, Spruce Saddle sits at the top of the Centennial Express, and the resort lists it for a quick lunch or après; Beaver Creek is also where beginners and cautious intermediates get the easiest day of the five.

Beaver Creek Village is a smaller, more expensive and more orderly version of Vail's: a pedestrian village with the Strawberry Park Express lift beside it. It has a different tone from Vail, quieter and built to be walked.

Core Transit's Vail-Beaver Creek express ran about every 20 minutes at peak times in recent winters, and most Core routes were fare-free. If you've driven and are leaving after 4pm, expect I-70 near Avon to be slow.

The museum sits in the Vail Transportation Center at 231 South Frontage Road East, and it's open every day, 10am to 6pm, with free admission. Inside are the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame, which has inducted more than 250 honorees since its first class in 1977, interactive exhibits on skiing and snowboarding in Colorado, and a 10th Mountain Division exhibit.

That last part is the story you've been skiing on. The soldiers who trained at Camp Hale in the 1940s came home and built the American ski industry, and Vail's founders were among them. Give it an hour, and you will understand why the mountain has the names it does.

The gardens, in Ford Park at 8,200 feet, are open daily from dawn to dusk, and the outdoor gardens are free. In winter there's nothing in flower, so it's a quiet walk through a snowy park beside Gore Creek, with the Education Center as a warm stop when it's open and a guided snowshoe tour on some winter dates.

It's an easy morning walk from the museum, about 15 minutes, or a short bus ride. Don't expect flowers, but it's a good place to see the valley without a mountain in the way.

The Vail Nordic Center, at 1775 Sunburst Drive in the Vail Golf Club, is open daily from 9am to 5pm and has about 6 miles (10 km) of snowshoe trails. Snowshoeing is the right sport for a rest day: flat, quiet, and you can go at any pace. The center rents a snowshoe package for about 37 USD and the day trail pass was 29 USD for adults in the 2025/26 prices, with 2026/27 prices not yet posted.

Go after lunch, when the snow has warmed a little. A free alternative is a naturalist-led snowshoe tour from Walking Mountains, which starts at the Nature Discovery Center at the top of the Eagle Bahn Gondola; check dates and how to get up the gondola.

Minturn is about 7 miles from Vail, off U.S. 24, and it's the opposite of Vail. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad arrived in 1887 and turned it into a railroad town. It was incorporated in 1904, has about 1,000 residents and sits on the Eagle River, west of Vail.

Walk North Main Street and look at the old wooden buildings and the shops. The name has nothing to do with turning locomotives: it honors Robert Bowne Minturn Jr., a vice president of the railroad. This is where people who work in Vail live and eat, and it feels like it.

The Minturn Saloon, at 146 North Main Street, is one of the oldest buildings in town, built in 1901. It has housed a bar and a restaurant ever since. Today it serves modern Tex-Mex, and it's the place to finish your last evening. It's small, so go early or book.