At 8 a.m., students up and down the Vail Valley in Colorado are entering the doors of the local high school.

But not freshman Abby Ghent. She is standing on the snow at Vail Ski Resort and using a heavy, metal wrench to screw a racing gate into the snow. The gates — the bright poles that skiers race around at the Winter Olympics — have to be screwed in tight so they don’t rip out when the girls come racing down the mountain.

If they want to attend the Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy, these girls have to be willing to do dirty work like this, carry a lot of gear and stay ahead in school.

Read about it here or listen to it at NPR.org

The Avon Transit Center is now one more step closer to being the complete transportation hub in its dreams of itself- the Gondola to Beaver Creek Landing is now fully operational, cutting the average transit time of skiers from Avon to Beaver Creek by about five minutes. The gondola also serves end-of-day or lunching skiers downloading back to Avon. Check out the ride in this slideshow:

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Looking for condominiums in Beaver Creek may be arduous, especially for the first-time visitor or anyone looking to make a change from the “same-old.” The trouble in the past has been that there has been no really solid information about what’s available to visitors, “authorities” on the subject are often salespeople or seasoned tourists who don’t know all there is to know about condominiums in Beaver Creek. Either way, the information is not 100%.

BeaverCreekCondominiums.com is a non-sales driven directory site aiming to carefully and correctly list all the condominium properties in Beaver Creek available for rent, for winter sports enthusiasts and year-round visitors. The site is new, in “alpha” stage, so expect improvements in the near future. BeaverCreekCondominiums.com lists all known condominium properties at no cost to the properties in order to offer a balanced and accurate perspective on the availability of properties in the Beaver Creek area. Featured properties have elected to list more information on the site, such as amenities, photos, and links.
Visit BeaverCreekCondominiums.com to find a condominium that suits your lifestyle and budget, then use that property’s preferred booking method to make that reservation.

BeaverCreekCondominiums.com is a sister site to the Vail Valley Blog.

2008 is going to be a very intellectual year for the participants and members of the Vail Symposium, who will be following drug scandals, international politics, cross-cultural art, and documentary films all from the Eagle valley.

This winter we will travel from India to the Peruvian Amazon to Antarctica; we will dig into history from fossils to the Vietnam War to Camp Hale; we will experience the art of Spanish music, Cowboy Artists, and Japanese calligraphy; and we will delve into sports scandals, cave microbes and organ transplants — all the while, being right here in our Valley.

The Symposium calendar is available through our calendar, and through the Vail Symposium website, where tickets to programming can be purchased and more details for programming can be found.

Personally I am still exceedingly grateful for last year’s Denver Art Tour that lead us around the Denver Art Museum, the new Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Logan collection of Denver. This year there is a Contemporary Art Tour scheduled for Beaver Creek, as well as such rare opportunities as a Bonsai Workshop, Japanese Brush Calligraphy, a Studio Glass Tour, not to mention Behind the Scenes tours of Vail and Beaver Creek, a historical Camp Hale Snowshoe, and the Active Minds series that provides major-university quality expert lecturers to the community on some of the most controversial topics.

Be sure to keep checking the Eagle Valley Blog Calendar to find out what will be happening on your days in the Vail valley.

At one time it seemed that Aspen and Vail / Beaver Creek had a rivalry, each trying to one-up the other on lift ticket prices as seasons alternated. This year was Aspen’s turn, with a price of $87, until Vail Resorts announced its rise in ticket prices this week. Now it seems, that the whole industry is facing a rivalry with the price of crude oil. Does skiing in Colorado everywhere cost this much?

• Copper Mountain:up to $79 one day, but steep discounts provided at 2+ day rates. Distance from Vail: 25 gorgeous driving minutes.
• Ski Cooper: $39! A great deal but many fewer on-mountain amenities. Ski where the 10th mountain division used to train, on the continental divide in some of the highest altitude. Distance from Vail/ BC – one careful hour or 35 bat-out-of-H*** minutes.
• Breckenridge: Up to $86 depending on the week of the year. Check their prices online. Distance from Vail: 45 minutes.
• Keystone: $79. Distance from Vail /BC – 50 minutes. Keystone has night skiing too, so this may be a good choice if you get a late start.
• A-Basin: Colorado’s first, and lowest! Only $58 and score a season pass for less than the price of five nights. This bald mountain on the continental divide is still “the Legend.”

I was really hoping to find you a deal, folks. Here’s what I would say: stay next to the mountain you want to ski- get an early start, and hit it hard. Take a couple of days off to enjoy some snowshoeing or ice climbing in East Vail. The cost of renting a car may outweigh the lower lift prices at other destinations, but we understand. Realistically, the prices have only gone up $10 or less, so just find a place to stay that makes that cost back for you. Places like Beaver Creek West that are close to the bus route but off the slopes make a great compromise. Again, sorry the ticket prices are so high! But we’d really love to see ya.