History
Vail was founded by Pete Seibert and Earl Eaton in 1962, at the base of Vail Pass, which was named after Charles Vail, designer of the highway that passed through the valley.
During World War II, Seibert joined the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division which trained at Camp Hale, 14 miles south of Vail between Red Cliff and Leadville. During the training Seibert and Eaton became familiar with the surrounding terrain, areas of which would become resorts in later decades. They discovered a peak that believed to be well-located and with good snow, calling it No-name Mountain, which later became Vail.
Construction of the resort began in 1962 in the uninhabited valley. It opened six months later on 15 December. There were three lifts: one gondola that ran from the base of the front side to midmountain, called MidVail; a lift from MidVail to the mountain peak; and a lift allowing access to the back bowls. Vail quickly grew to become a popular ski resort, a village formed at the base, near the gondola ski lift, which was taken down in the 1970s.
Also at that time, the construction of Interstate 70 highway had begun, replacing highway Route 6. During the 1970s, the Eisenhower Tunnel was completed and President Gerald Ford and family vacationed at their Vail home, bringing it international exposure. Vail grew into a super-resort, with skiers and vacationers paying European trip prices for a Colorado vacation. Later, Vail's village expanded. In 1970, Denver was awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics with Vail selected to host the skiing competitions. However, Colorado voters denied funding by a 3:2 margin in November 1972 and, three months later, the games were awarded instead to Innsbruck in Austria.
By the 1970 the mountain had been greatly expanded, with a second gondola added in the Lionshead area, which also included a residences and shops at the base of the slopes. On 26 March 1976, when carrying cable snagged on a support tower and two cabins derailed from gondola towers, killing four people and injuring eight. The gondola was closed for the remainder of the season. Soon after the original gondola in the village was replaced with a lift.
In 1989, Vail hosted the Alpine Skiing World Championships with great success. The championships were held in Vail/Beaver Creek again a decade later (Vail 99), to even bigger fanfare. In 1985, five high-speed detachable quad chairlifts were opened, the second mountain in the country to use them, after Breckenridge. Vail Associates bought Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Heavenly in California in 1996. The company allowed skiers to buy an all-mountain pass that granted admission to all of their resorts.
In October 1998, the Earth Liberation Front set fire to the resort's Two Elk restaurant, Camp One, ski patrol headquarters, and four ski lifts, causing US$12 million in damage, to protest the planned expansion of ski terrain into lynx habitat. All the buildings destroyed by arson were rebuilt. Poma Ski Lifts Company added three high-speed quads to open the Blue Sky Basin expansion. Most of the lifts suffered only minor damage. However, the drive station for High Noon lift was destroyed, and later rebuilt.
In the early 2000s, hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in the resort. In 2000, Vail opened Blue Sky Basin, an intermediate-expert back-country area with moguls, tree skiing, cliffs, and ridges. Vail has been the number one ski resort in the United States 14 times in a 17 year period.
In 2004, the original Lionshead skier bridge was replaced. At the end of the 2005-06 ski season, the chairlift number one (located at the base of "Giant Steps"), the last double chairlift in operation since the early 1960s, was replaced. According to a press release on 1 August 2006, Vail began offsetting all of its power usage by purchasing wind power credits. They were the second largest corporation in the United States to do so.
In summer 2007, after seven years without a new chairlift, Vail undertook one of the biggest lift improvements at a Colorado ski area when it installed two high-speed quad chairlifts to replace the Highline (double) and Sourdough (triple) lifts. This eliminated a traverse from the Sourdough lift to the Two Elk Lodge restaurant. A new plaza was opened at the bottom of the Vista Bahn Express ski lift in Vail Village in 2008. On 27 February 2010, one of the original black diamond trails (a steep slope for advanced skiers), International, was renamed Lindsey's to honor Vail's Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn. The trail is next to "Giant Steps" and one of two flanking the original lift number one from the base of the mountain. On 10 December 2010, a new high-speed quad chairlift in the Sun Down Bowl, the High Noon Express, opened, replacing a fixed-grip triple.
On Opening day 2011,Vail opened a new ski-in/out fine dining restaurant at mid-Vail. The new restaurant, named "The Tenth" is named for the famed US Army division that trained nearby and several Vail founders once belonged.
On November 16th, 2012, Sheika Gramshammer, wife of local ski legend Pepi Gramshammer and co-founder of the Hotel-Gasthof Gramshammer christened Vail's "Gondola One"; a new 12 person gondola lift replacing the Mid-Vail Express (#16 high-speed quad). The new gondola provides a much needed fast, warm and sheltered ride between Vail Village and the Mid-Vail area.
Read more about this topic: Vail Ski Resort
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