Vail Warnings and Dangers

Do NOT be an idiot & drive in, spend the night, & then ski the back bowls. Take the lift a third of the way up & ski from THERE the first day.
Go to Travel Doctor cited below. Read!
Our group (ages 18 to 70) all in superb shape & pre-conditioned STILL had alt. issues. One of us: acute urinary retention. Docs said related to alt. Two others of us experienced a single red eye - your blood pressure goes up, your eye blood vessels swell. No pain tho worrisome until we looked up cause using free Vail WiFi.Rest of us had exhasution, headaches, dizziness until day 3.
Don't fear Vail! 99% of symptoms gone after 3 days, and before biggest symptom was gasping for air after climbing steps. One uf us got Diamox before coming. In January without, he'd been in shape, but spent the first two days with blue nailbeds on his fingers, purple lips though they were warm because he wasn't getting enough O2! In December same year on Diamox, he was FINE and out shovelling the walks the first night.

Merck Manual says "Most people can ascend to 5000 to 6500 ft (Denver level) in 1 day without problems, but about 20% who ascend to 8000 ft (Vail level) and 40% who ascend to 10,000 ft (not top of Vail mountain skiing!) develop some form of altitude sickness.

Drink extra water because breathing large volumes of dry air at altitude greatly increases water loss, and dehydration aggravates symptoms. Avoid salt. Alcohol seems to worsen AMS and reduces breathing during sleep, accentuating sleep disturbance. Eat frequent small meals that are high in easily digested carbohydrates (eg, fruits, jams, starches) 1st few days.

No other injuries or problems, thank heavens!

BTW: It's cold & flu season. Bring hand wipes, Clorox counter wipes for doorknobs, lightswitches, etc., sublingual B12 for energy, ibuprofen, vitamin C, melantonin for sleep, decongestant nasal spray, Sudafed (pseudoephedrine), normal saline nasal spray (your nose gets DRY!!!), menthol cough drops, etc.

It goes without saying but it snows in resort cities. I drive a Honda and still had problems with a sudden downpoor. Its lovely on the slopes but when hundreds of cars are tryng to go up and down hills on new snow it can get scetchy. I had chains to use but buy the time you get then on you start hitting bare spots and have to take them right back off. Just keep it in mind when you trying to get that last run in an you know you have a long drive ahead of you.

At the " GOLDEN PEAK SUPER PARK" beneath the Riva Bahn Chair there are some monster jumps. If you stand on the downhill side of the jumps and watch someone fly over it is really quite scary.. Do not try this sort of thing unless you have been trained.

Mount fever is very serious especially if you live in a flat area like NJ...maybe only 1,000 ft above sea level.
I had the worst headaches because we went straight to the mts. to snowboard. Plus boaring while suffering mt fever & motion sickness will throw you coordination completely off.
One word -Diamox
Also drink lots of water and eat for energy!