Vail Connects Past to Present in 50th Anniversary Video

This week I’ll be on my first week-long vacation in…well, I honestly can’t remember the last one I took. Among other things, I hope to spend some time on one of my favorite activities: finding lost ski areas. I absolutely love ski history, and with that topic on the brain, I thought I’d take this week to look back at some old-school marketing and see what we learn.

The video above is one of my favorites this fall. It’s more than powder turns, it’s a story and a powerful one at that. This year, Vail is celebrating their 50th anniversary and I think this video, that cleverly connects the present with the past, is a great illustration of this half-century of narrative.

The Change
The fact of the matter is, skiing has changed, a lot. Asking a skier today to try to tackle even one run on gear from 50 years ago would be an exhausting chore. Single lifts have higher uphill capacity than entire resorts used to. Vail alone probably has more skiable acreage than most of New England had combined in 1962.

Yet, at the core, it’s the same. It’s sliding down a snow-covered hill with a smile on your face. I think this video does a great job of reminding us of that fact.