The Un-Vailing


 

“You’ve arrived,” the middle-aged woman chirped in a sing-song voice. “You’re now officially visiting Vail and Beaver Creek.” Her painted nails tapped along the surface of the bar, nearly in tune with the words. Precious stones and gold rings flashed in the half-light.

We had just been introduced by my brother-in-law (Vail’s newest resident) and were in the process of being told just exactly how lucky we were to be on the loose in the Gore Valley. “Vail and Beaver Creek are on the cutting edge of the Colorado experience,” she added in lofty tones “We really know how to do tourism right here. I, personally, think it’s a model for all of Colorado.”

Our new companion then launched into a brief history lesson, proudly explaining how Pete Seibert and Earl Eaton (a uranium prospector by chance) first visited Eagle County in the late 1950s. Before the pair decided to build “the most beautiful ski resort in the world” – their words, not hers – the valley was the realm of sheepherders. But agriculture had no place in that new dynamic, and the Basques were promptly sent down the road. Earth movers took their place in 1962, and only seven years later, Vail was already taking honors as the most popular ski resort in the country.

Throughout, our new friend assumed that the Sands family was touristing for a mud-season getaway, rather than briefly stopping over to welcome a relative to their home state. And so we were regaled with recommendations for “scenic chair-lift rides” and suggested “hikes” through the heart of Vail Village.

I politely played along, opting not to mention that ski racing first brought me to Vail and Beaver Creek in the early 1980s. Back then, in the era of early Reaganomics, Vail was a little Disneyland in the mountains. It was actually kind of charming, in a “Small World After All” kind of way, an ideal place for people from all corners to escape their day-to-day doldrums amid faux Bavarian finishes. Instead of taking this trip down amnesia lane (to a time that predated our new pal’s tenure), I continued to plaster a bullshitter’s grin to my face and nodded as high-end restaurant reccs issued from her lip-sticked mouth.

Our host then made a rapid and surprising shift in the conversation, offering, “Here are a couple of words to the wise. Altitude sickness is real and can be quite devastating.”

She then turned directly to me and added, “You, in particular, should probably watch how much you drink.”

The stern words spilled into the air and shocked my ears upon entry. Still, I managed decorum, held the grin together and replied warmly that I’ve been know to enjoy good results from a tequila and bourbon blend swilled at close to 12,000 feet. Just in case she was interested, I added that we actually live only about a hundred meters lower and call Durango home.

Our new companion looked back at the “bumpkins” and grinned. “Oh, I hear it’s absolutely lovely down there in New Mexico,” she giggled and sipped her cocktail. “Or is it Arizona? I just can’t remember. I don’t really get outside Colorado very often.”

With that, the grains of sand officially drained from my personal hourglass. We settled the bill, shook hands and wandered our separate ways out into the sparkling world of Eagle County. She went off for another Rumpletini. I pointed it straight for the pillow and the chance that dreamland would sweep me back to the Western Slope.

Daylight shone the next morning, and I woke inside a two-bedroom condo in nearby Avon. The words “model for all of Colorado” rang in my head as I looked through the window. The view was enough to spin Seibert in his grave.

The low walls of the valley were covered in a rash of condominiums, and the only breaks in the blight were big box retailers, Ritz-Carltons and overpriced golf courses. Even the old Disney halo was missing in that sea of thousands of cheaply built, identical living units. It was land where even the trophy homes sat on postage stamp lots, a place apparently devoid of parks and completely lacking the pastoral soul afforded by Colorado’s farms and ranches. It was a realm where dueling furriers pimped mink and fox catty-corner to one another in the “village,” a locale where Land Rovers, Lexuses and Hummers swarmed along the four-lane interstate bisecting the “towns,” a real estate market where a starter condo hovered at a price close to $1 million.

“Forty years” were the two words that dawned at that moment and eventually carried me back down I-70 and toward home. Four short decades were all it took to pack that once peaceful valley with plywood, and the notion was a sobering one.

Fortunately, “the Colorado experience” I grew up with and have come to love and need was not far off. As we pulled back into the San Juan Mountains, with their century and a half of history, genuine mountain folk and still relatively pristine vistas, I could hear my misplaced companion saying, “You’ve arrived.” And I was strangely comforted, knowing she was off swallowing her first Rumpletini in a bar that was still a couple hundred miles away.

– Will Sands

 

 

In this week's issue...

January 25, 2024
Bagging it

State plastic bag ban is in full effect, but enforcement varies

January 26, 2024
Paper chase

The Sneer is back – and no we’re not talking about Billy Idol’s comeback tour.

January 11, 2024
High and dry

New state climate report projects continued warming, declining streamflows