Pros
Vail is a great mountain to ride, wonderful terrain and lots of snow. In the summer it is beautiful and sunny almost every day.
Cons
Vail is a corporate company that will bend you over backwards for your money. There handbook is written in a way so that if something happens and it's not in the book, or it is and there are little details that make the difference, Vail is able to change the rules in the hand book so that Vail is never at fault. "The Company reserves the right to modify, revoke, suspend, terminate, or change any or all of the information contained in the Handbook and any plans, guidelines or procedures, in whole or in part, at any time, with or without notice." For a "professional company", that doesn't seem very professional. That looks like a company that is all about finding a back way into anything. They treat their employees like lesser being and continuously promote people with only one interest, self benefits and company expansion. The rules and regulations of Vail are made by people that don't even live here, they live in or around Broomfield, CO. Therefore they do not understand what needs to happen and how things actually work on the mountain. We have mountain police that don't punish the people that are skiing out of control, cutting across the entire trail at slower speeds than the general traffic, stopping in blind spots, and even cutting other people off. All of these actions are very dangerous when it comes to skiing/snowboarding, i personally have seen friends of mine nearly become hospitalized because some tourist isn't paying attention to their surroundings and blindly going down the hill. Vail needs to get the priorities straight, not their priorities because that would be more money. Vail puts on a face to make tourist feel safe and have fun so that they spend more money. Therefore they do not punish tourists for irresponsible behavior both on and off the mountain. Thus leaving the only people to be punish is the locals, and I'm not talking about the locals with money, I mean the locals that live here year-round and are living in small and expensive housing units. The money we make from out jobs here in the valley mostly goes right to rent, utilities, groceries, and gas if we have a car. What's left is just about enough to go out to the bars and pay for the cheaper deals like $3 beers... the statistics may tell a different story, but thats because all the poor locals are clumped in with the obnoxiously rich locals that either live here with their family, or more often the case, live in their multi-million dollar homes maybe 3 weeks out of the year. The reason why Vail has so many people working for them is because if you constantly replace employees you don't have to pay them more hourly. Tell me why the grooming operators that start at $13 an hour, are getting payed $15 an hour after working for Vail for 5 years?! At the same time we have directors making a $116,000 average yearly salary! These directors are the same ones that are trying to make the mountain safe but going about it in the completely opposite way that it should be, by punishing the people that know how to ski/ride well for dodging the people that don't ski/ride well so they don't end up in the hospital and/or a lawsuit. I could go on but i have better things to do than let Vail take up more of my day.