| With the two resorts being only a half hour bus ride away from each
other, and lift tickets valid at both resorts (as well as Breckenridge
and Keystone), it doesn't make that much sense to try to detail what each
offers separately. Both are worthy of a visit, and it's best to visit both
early in your trip so as to decide which mountains suit you best.
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Beginners
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Both Vail and Beaver Creek are excellent for beginners. Lying at the
top of the Birds of Prey lift in BC are a host of gentle, meandering greens
that serve perfectly to warm up on and provide enjoyable, easy cruising.
It also significantly helps that Beaver Creek is extensively groomed -
with perfect, smooth corduroy surfaces to ski down, progress increases.
With generally empty slopes over it's wide runs, beginners are best off
spending the first day or so of their holidays at BC - the long cruising
runs from atop Birds of Prey to the base should keep most happy.
The greens and blues leading under and alongside the Eagle Bahn Gondola
down to Lionshead provide the bulk of trails for beginners in Vail There
are quite alot of catwalks and roads leading down from the very top of
the mountain and allowing full appreciation of the scenery, and there are
wide shallow blues which allow wide enough turns for controlling speed.
Lost Boy leading around the edge of Game Creek Bowl gives excellent views,
but overall, if you're still not too confident on the slopes, BC offers
the better first day bet.
After a few days on the slopes, you'll be able to explore the bulk of
both mountains, enjoying the long cruisers and heading onto the wider blues.
The choice is almost endless on both, and there's plenty of territory to
spend the week exploring.
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Intermediates
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Hard to fault, with something for everyone from cruisers to groomed
steeps to shallow bump runs to the famous Back Bowls and Blue Sky Basin.
The bulk of the front side of Vail Mountain is ideally suited for the
intermediate skier, with good, long runs down under the Lionshead lifts
offering a consistent pitch and regularly groomed surface. Game Creek Bowl
has some good blue runs, and runs down to mid-Vail from Wildwood or Buffalos
offer sweeping cruising.
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Intermediates (cont)
| | Both the Back Bowls and Blue Sky Basin are more accessible than you
might otherwise think. Poppyfields and Chopsticks in China Bowl aren't
too steep and are often groomed, and the ability to see the whole of the
Bowl as you ride the chairlifts up allows you to see what's mogulled up,
and how steep the drop ins are so you can plan what to ski and what to
avoid. Also possible in Game Creek bowl, this allows you to try the steeps
without fear of finding the runs bumped up half way down.
Blue Sky Basin has some wonderful pistes, slowly descending through
lightly gladed regions, offering a feel of being out in the backcountry,
and a chance to begin to get to grips with powder.
Over at Beaver Creek, Rose Bowl and Larkspur bowl offer similar possibilities
to Game Creek Bowl, with wide groomed runs down the centre, and steeper,
tempting runs down the sides. The extensive grooming provides lots of good
cruising and also some nice groomed black runs, allowing forays into the
steeps. |
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Experts
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Five words - Back Bowls, Blue Sky Basin.
With deep powder, tightly wooded glades, steeps and cliffs, Blue Sky
Basin is an experts playground. And The Back Bowls offer similarly endless
prospects on a powder day. With huge expansive bowls where you can ski
virtually anywhere, just pick your drop in point and go. Fast quads serve
the exit points in all but Sun-up and Sun-down bowls, allowing you to get
back up and in again quickly.
The front side offers some double diamond steep, mogulled slopes over
in the Highline and Northwoods Express lift areas, and when groomed these
offer fast cruising.
Experts shouldn't overlook Beaver Creek, which offers some serious
steeps and big bumps over on Grouse Mountain, and the famous Birds of Prey
downhill.
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