The new new Vail, 50 years later

Fifty years later Vail resort can attract 1.7 million people to its slopes per season, and it is a seven-and-one-half-minute ascent up the mountain in the resort’s new 10-person gondola, equipped with heated seats and Wi-Fi access…Just outside the restaurant door, Vail photographers will take your picture, and using the chip embedded in your $106 lift ticket (the online purchase price) send it to friends through the social network of your choice. The same chip can chart and digest every detail of your day: the number of vertical feet skied, trails visited and your top speed. Later, you will also be able to watch video from the day, if you are one of the many on the mountain who have affixed a tiny camera to your helmet.

Suffice it to say, the Vail founders, both deceased, would hardly recognize the resort today.