[Journal entry for January 8, 2013; Vail Ski Resort] Dallas and I get a late start and arrive at Lionsgate in Vail at about 10AM. The drive from our hotel in Dillon Colorado takes about 35 minutes. We take the gondala up the mountain, then ski around randomly. This is our first time at Vail and do not know our way around this huge ski resort at all. Even when we see trails we might want to ski, getting to them is problematical - we make many wrong turns. We take one very long, windy and boring catwalk appropriately named Sleepytime; it is by far the longest that I have ever been on. We find ourselves at Belles Camp, a small lodge at the summit of a small mounatin. It has a deck with grilles. We eat lunch there. Afterwards, we inspect a small windmill that is installed adjacent to the bathroom building. We then ski Pete's Bowl, in the Blue Sky Basin, winding our way through the open glades of Big Rock Park. We do indeed ski past some extremely large, rectangular rocks. The lower section of the trail has a natural half-pipe that is lots of fun. We repeat the run several times, taking the Pete's Express Lift back up to the summit, and also take the Grand Review trail several times. The trail is nice, but the snow is rather thing. I'm afraid my skis accumulated several scratches from going over rocks! Finally, we made our way back to Wildwood (peak), and then skiied the Eagles Nest Ridge trail back to the gindala. From there, we had but a quick run down the Bwana trail, on the front face of the mountain, to reach Lionsgate. We wrapped up our skking, for the sun was getting low in the sky, the shadows were lengthening, and the visibility was starting to be poor. About five and a half hours.