The Osprey Beaver Creek is the closest hotel to a ski lift in North America
Riding up the long Strawberry Park chairlift on a sunny, mild morning in Beaver Creek, Colorado, I was happy to have a volunteer tour guide on the seat next to me leading me around the mountain. We were heading up to 11,000 feet of elevation, after all, and the guide, an 81-year-old who’d introduced himself as Emil, knew every run tumbling below us.
“I give complimentary mountain tours about 40 mornings a winter,” said Emil, who’d been living in Beaver Creek for six years. He’s only required to give 20 tours to qualify for a complimentary season pass, but he loves to ski and is very proud of the gorgeous Rocky Mountain vistas and loves showing off the marvelous terrain Beaver Creek provides.
We’d boarded the lift a few feet outside the door of The Osprey at Beaver Creek – the closest hotel lodging to a chairlift anywhere in North America. As we rode up, Emil pointed out the home of the late President Gerald Ford, with its’ adjacent Secret Service quarters, below us to the left. I asked Emil if he’d ever met President Ford, who was very visible in the Vail Valley.
“I was around President Ford often because I was from Grand Rapids – his hometown in Michigan,” he said. When Emil asked me why I chuckled in response, I told him I was from Lansing – Michigan’s State Capital. “I have a relative from Lansing,” he said. “His name is Tom Izzo. Heard of him?”
“Small world,” I answered, since I was acquainted with Izzo, who famously coaches the Michigan State University basketball team. “I’ve seen him play the accordion at Christmastime.”
“Yeah, badly, but by family demand,” Emil joked.
It turns out Emil Pulick’s son married Becky, who is one of the sisters of Izzo’s wife Lupe. Emil is a retired Ford engineer who used to spend winters skiing at Boyne Highlands in Harbor Springs. He returns to Michigan for the summers, but his children and grandchildren invade his Beaver Creek home each March. “They all ski at separate abilities, so they sort of go their own way on the mountain,” he says. “The littler ones urge me, ‘Grandpa, can you ski a little bit faster!?’”
But Emil’s experience makes him savvy. “Try getting an intoxicated woman who is having a big fight with her husband down the mountain,” he laughed. One group of women skiers wanted to undress and have Emil take their picture at the scenic spot where Playboy Magazine once did a photo shoot. “Then they decided with ski goggles I looked like Hugh Hefner and wanted me in the shot, too!”
Emil refused to be in the photo…or take the photo. He did, however, catch a G-rated glimpse of current vice-president Joe Biden skiing at Beaver Creek earlier this season. Your trip to Beaver Creek for alpine chic awaits you at www.ospreyatbeavercreek.rockresorts.com or call (866) 621-7625.
