Things to Do in Vail, Colorado: A Local Guide

Step onto the gondola with your coffee barely finished, and within a few minutes the village falls away beneath you and the whole Gore Range opens up ahead. That is how a morning starts in Vail.

This is our guide to the days worth planning, season by season, from the team who live in this valley and love showing people around it. When you would rather ask than read, your InvitedHome advisor knows the trailhead that never has a line and incredible restaurants you’ll want to reserve for dinner.

The gondola is worth treating as the first thing you do, not simply the way up the mountain. Two gondolas climb Vail, and each one leaves from a different village, so where you board decides which side of the mountain you meet first.

Gondola One lifts you from Vail Village to Mid-Vail, the crossroads of the mountain, where the runs branch east and west in winter and the summer trails fan out from the top of the lift. The Eagle Bahn Gondola climbs out of Lionshead to Eagle’s Nest, the gathering point at the top of that side, with Game Creek Bowl falling away beyond it. Both run through summer and winter, and both reward the ride with a view you will want to sit with.

Go up once on a clear morning and again toward sunset, and you will feel like you have seen two different valleys. In summer, ride to the top and step straight onto the trails that leave from the station. In winter, it is how everyone in your group who would rather not ski still meets the skiers for lunch on the mountain.

By early summer the snow is usually off the mountain and the valley opens up completely. Wildflowers come in through the tall meadows, Gore Creek runs full and cold, and the light lingers long enough for a hike after dinner. This is the season with the longest list of things to do in Vail, and the one that tends to surprise first-time visitors most. If you are planning a full week in Vail in summer, there is more than enough here to fill every day without repeating one.

Vail’s Hiking and Waterfalls

The Booth Falls Trail is the walk most people remember. It climbs through aspen groves and open meadow to a waterfall about two miles up, gaining roughly 1,400 feet along the way. There is no parking at the trailhead or anywhere in the surrounding neighborhood from the end of May, and towing is enforced, so take the free East Vail bus from the Vail Transportation Center and walk the last quarter mile in. If your legs are willing, keep going. Booth Lake sits at 11,480 feet in an alpine cirque, four and a half miles from the bottom with about 3,000 feet of climbing all told.

For a gentler morning, the Gore Valley Trail runs paved and nearly level through the middle of town, part of a recreation path system holding more than 23 miles of paved trail. East of the village, the Pitkin Creek and East Vail waterfall hikes give you two more to chase.

Betty Ford Alpine Gardens

Tucked beside Ford Park at 8,200 feet, the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens are the highest elevation botanical garden in North America. More than 3,000 species of high-altitude plants grow across the Mountain Perennial Garden, the Alpine Rock Garden, the Mountain Meditation Garden, and a hands-on children’s garden. The gardens are open every day of the year from dawn to dusk and free to walk, with a suggested donation of twenty dollars, and they slot beautifully into a slow morning off the gondola or a quiet afternoon between village stops.

On the Water: Fly Fishing and Piney Lake

Gore Creek runs right through the middle of Vail, and it happens to be one of Colorado’s Gold Medal trout streams, so a fly rod is never far from the action. A local guide can put you on the water within walking distance of the village, or take you out to quieter private stretches nearby.

For a full day away from town, drive out to Piney River Ranch, twelve miles from West Vail at the end of Red Sandstone Road. It is an unpaved forest road and takes closer to an hour than the mileage suggests. Piney Lake sits at the foot of the Gore Range, and you can spend the afternoon in a canoe or on a paddleboard, cast for trout from the shore, or walk the trail along the water. It is the kind of place you plan a picnic around, and the drive in is half the pleasure.

Mountain Biking on Vail’s Trails

Vail runs lift-served downhill mountain biking through the summer for riders who would rather let gravity do the work. Off the mountain, the paved Vail Pass Recreation Path climbs eight and three quarter miles from East Vail to the 10,662-foot summit of Vail Pass, an out-and-back that welcomes almost any fitness level and turns around whenever you are ready.

For singletrack, the Two Elk National Recreation Trail crosses the valley between Vail’s Back Bowls and Blue Sky Basin, running between East Vail and Minturn through the White River National Forest. It is a demanding ride, technical in places, and best saved for experienced riders with a full day. Note that it carries an annual wildlife closure from early May into the end of June, extended into July on the Back Bowls side, so check before you plan around it.

Play at the Top of the Mountain

Riding up is only half of it for families. At the top of the mountain, Epic Discovery turns the summit into a summer playground. The Forest Flyer mountain coaster winds down through the trees, and a 330-foot tubing hill gives little ones their first real rush. The Little Eagle kids’ zipline, the Paramount Peak climbing wall, and mini golf round out the afternoon. Children twelve and under ride the scenic gondola free with an adult ticket, so the whole day is easy to fold into one trip up high.

Wildflowers, Golf and the Mount of the Holy Cross

Summer brings some of the best wildflower displays in the valley. Shrine Pass Road, west of town, runs through open meadow to the finest vantage on the Mount of the Holy Cross, the 14,005-foot peak named for the cross-shaped snow that lingers in a couloir on its northeast face. On a dry day it makes an easy half day out, whether you drive it, bike it, or walk a stretch of it.

Back down in the valley, the Vail Golf Club opens its eighteen holes along Gore Creek once the snow is gone, with the Gore Range standing over every fairway. It is a lovely, unhurried way to spend a bluebird morning before the afternoon clouds build.

Ski the Back Bowls

The Back Bowls are the reason many skiers first come to Vail, and the reason they keep finding their way back. Seven open, mostly treeless bowls stretch across the back of the mountain, 2,785 acres of wide, sun-facing terrain across 47 trails that holds its snow well after a storm has passed. For a strong intermediate or advanced skier, a full day drifting from Sun Down to China Bowl and on toward Mongolia is the kind of day you will describe for years. The 2026/27 season opens on November 13 and runs into April.

Beyond the Lifts

Vail has plenty to do on the days you are not skiing. The Vail Nordic Center at the Vail Golf Club, just east of Vail Village, grooms seventeen kilometers of cross-country track daily, along with ten kilometers of snowshoe trail and thirteen for fat bikes, with rentals and a warm grill waiting at the turn. Around the villages you will find outdoor ice skating, sleigh rides, and guided snowmobile and dog-sled outings for anyone who wants a story to take home.

On days you want to stay inside, gallery walks and fireside afternoons fill the hours between runs, a spa treatment is never far away. The Colorado Snowsports Museum is a warm, free stop for anyone curious how the sport arrived here. If you are traveling in February, Valentine’s Day is one of the most anticipated dates on Vail’s winter calendar, when the villages lean into candlelit dinners and quiet corners. Our guide to February events in Vail has the full lineup, and your InvitedHome advisor is glad to arrange the table, the sleigh, or the small surprise that makes the evening.

From late September into early October, the aspens turn gold along the Vail Pass path and up Gore Creek, and the summer crowds thin right out. Trails that felt busy in July feel like your own again, and tables are easier to come by while the Vail Farmers’ Market and Art Show runs its last Sundays of the year. Vail Oktoberfest brings a couple of lively weekends to the villages in early fall, with the bands, the beer, and the contests that make it a favorite. It is the quietest stretch on the calendar, and to many of us who live here, the loveliest.

Vail keeps a summer calendar out of proportion to its size, and for many visitors the festival is the reason for the trip. Most of it gathers around Ford Park and the amphitheater.

• Bravo! Vail, a classical music residency running from late June into early August, with visiting orchestras at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater.
• The Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater also stages the Vail Dance Festival from late July into August, and Hot Summer Nights, the free concert series held on select Tuesday evenings through the summer and into September.
• The Vail Farmers’ Market and Art Show fills East Meadow Drive every Sunday from the middle of June into early October, with local growers, makers, and an easy morning stroll.
• The 4th of July is one of the biggest days of the Vail summer, with a parade through the village, a patriotic concert at the amphitheater, and a drone show over the mountain after dark. It is one of many Vail summer events that fill the calendar between June and September.

Vail’s story starts on skis, and more recently than you might guess. A ski patrolman and 10th Mountain Division veteran named Pete Seibert and a local prospector named Earl Eaton climbed the then-unnamed mountain in March 1957 and saw what the back of it could become. It took five more years of quiet land deals and fundraising before Vail opened for its first ski season in December 1962. The town takes its name from Charles Vail, the state highway engineer who had routed U.S. Highway 6 through the valley two decades earlier.

Vail Village and Lionshead were built to feel like a European alpine village, walkable and car-free at their centers. That is still how they read on foot: Vail Village to Lionshead is roughly a ten to fifteen minute walk along the Gore Valley Trail, or a short hop on the free town bus. You can hear the rest of the story, and the wider history of skiing in Colorado, at the Colorado Snowsports Museum, on the third level of the Vail Village parking structure beside the covered bridge. Admission is free, and the museum’s Vail history walking tour is a fine way to spend a summer morning.

The villages have dining in happy abundance. These are simply the places that suit the day you have just had.

• Sweet Basil, a Vail Village landmark on Gore Creek Drive since 1977, for the dinner you plan the rest of the day around.
• Mountain Standard, its wood-fired sibling one level below, for the evening after a day outside when nobody wants to change clothes.
• Root & Flower, a small wine bar off a Vail Village side street, for a glass and a few plates after the galleries.
• Osaki’s, a handful of counter seats and an omakase, for the night you would rather sit still and let the kitchen decide.

Vail is an easy place to bring children. The gondola is the reliable win, and the ride up and back holds up no matter how many times you have done it. An afternoon at Epic Discovery on the summit, where the Forest Flyer coaster and the tubing hill tend to be the highlight of the whole trip, fills a day on its own. The Children’s Garden at Betty Ford Alpine Gardens is a hands-on run of streams, boulders, and blooms built for small explorers.

A Sunday morning at the Vail Farmers’ Market and Art Show turns a stroll into a full outing, with face painters, buskers, and fresh-baked treats. In the village there is outdoor ice skating and hot chocolate a few steps away, and in winter the family ski school at Golden Peak turns first turns into confident laps by lunchtime.

You will not need a car for most of a Vail trip, which is part of the pleasure of the place. Vail Village and Lionshead are about a ten to fifteen minute walk apart, or a quick ride on the free town bus, which also reaches East Vail and West Vail. That same free shuttle system carries you to the trailheads that have no parking of their own, the Booth Falls hike among them, all leaving from the Vail Transportation Center in the village.

Where you will want a vehicle is for the drives beyond town: Red Sandstone Road out to Piney Lake, Shrine Pass Road, and the quieter corners of the valley, some of them better with high clearance. Large parking structures sit at both village entrances if you do drive in, and everything inside the villages is easier on foot.

Vail runs on two calendars, so plan around both. The 2026/27 ski season opens November 13. It then carries on into April. The Back Bowls usually open around January. Summer reaches the trails a little later. Most hiking and biking routes clear of snow by June. Higher trails like Booth Lake can have snow into July. Once open, they welcome hikers well into October. The Vail Pass Recreation Path follows that same rhythm. The Two Elk Trail joins once its wildlife closure lifts. Some favorites belong to summer alone. Plan Epic Discovery and Piney River Ranch for the warm months. A round at Vail Golf Club fits there too.

The gondolas run through both main seasons, daily through the heart of the summer and on weekends into late September. Betty Ford Alpine Gardens is open every day of the year, and the Colorado Snowsports Museum is open daily as well. The Vail Farmers’ Market and Art Show and the festival calendar at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater carry the summer through into early fall.

All of this is easier with someone local behind it: the restaurant that was not taking reservations, the trailhead shuttle you had not heard of, the morning the wildflowers actually peak. Whenever you are ready to decide where to stay, we would love to help you settle in. Browse our Vail luxury vacation rentals.