It was time for another quick trip to a place in the USA that I hadn’t yet visited, so I basically did an “eeny, meeny, miney, moe” and came up with Beaver Creek, Colorado (see red circled area west of Denver and south of Vail below):

The town has an interesting history dating back to the late 1800’s. This was the time of Western expansion and  groups of farmers, ranchers and loggers decided to break ground in Beaver Creek.  It may seem an unusual  choice as the area is over 8,000 feet above sea level. It turns out that crops such as lettuce love the sun and the high elevation of the area so these pioneers were quite successful.

Despite its  rather remote location, the inhabitants were well aware of the explosion of popularity of skiing in the mid 1900’s and an enterprising fellow named Pete Seibert envisioned creating a ski resort that would rival those in Switzerland. He was not successful however in convincing landowners to sell their ranches so Seibert moved on and founded Vail which is 15 miles away.

Vail was obviously an outstanding success and Siebert finally did buy an option on some Beaver Creek land.  In fact, the Beaver Creek area was in line to be included in the pitch for Colorado to host the 1976 Winter Olympic Games .  Sadly for Beaver Creek,  the host site honors went to  Innsbruck, Austria.  While Colorado was initially chosen, its voters rejected funding for the games and after also being rejected by second choice British Columbia, the Olympic Games went to  Innsbruck.

Finally in the 1980’s Beaver Creek opened as a skiing resort and is now world-renowned as a high-caliber destination for championship tourneys and skiers who love the challenge of its slopes. Starting with just 4 chairlifts it now boasts of 24 lifts and 150 runs across over 1800 acres of skiable terrain that boasts over 325 inches of snow a year.

So why did I choose a ski resort for a summer getaway?  This:

As it turns out our driver was also the owner of the company and a long time resident of the area and  the time flew by as he  gave us a running commentary of the entire area – we almost didn’t want it to end.

Almost. We arrived here:

The best parts are  yet to come.  Stay tuned.

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