In keeping with our companywide commitments to environmental stewardship we have developed several programs to enhance the guest experience while maximizing efficiencies. 

• Guest Rooms and Healthier Housekeeping
• Green Meetings and "Environmentally Engaged" Weddings
• Appetite For Life - Sustainable Cuisine
• Renewable Energy 
• Water Conservation
• National Forest Foundation and Local Forest Conservation
• Forest Health and Watershed Restoration – The Hayman Restoration Partnership 
• Green Golf
• "Give & Getaway" Volunteer Vacations

Greener Guest Rooms

Legendary Lodging is committed to transitioning its current guestrooms to offer several environmental enhancements by building on a program that features the following components:

• In-room recycling
• Towel and linen reuse
• Custom formulated natural and essential oil amenities
• Safer, environmentally preferable cleaning products
• Energy efficient lighting
• Water conserving fixtures
• Recycled content personal paper products
• Reusable and renewable jute newspaper bag and daily newspaper opt out programs
• Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and recycled content in-room collateral and stationary
• Paints and finishes with no or low volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

The health of our guests, employees and the natural environment is critically important to us. As such, your room is carefully cleaned with products that contain low or no fragrances to minimize the use of toxins in our resorts.

At several of our properties you will also see other commitments that are emerging brand standards such as:

• Paperless check-in/check-out 
• Bio plastic (PLA) key cards and jackets printed on Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified 100% post-consumer recycled content paper. 
• Utilization of sustainable and efficient building and remodeling products including windows, decking, flooring and other finishing products. 
• Organic/natural/regional snacks and beverages in honor bar (where applicable) 
• Donation of retired hard and soft goods to local charities

In-Room Recycling

We are committed to conserving valuable natural resources and to assist in our efforts, we encourage you to recycle during your stay. Simply place any glass or plastic bottles, aluminum cans or newspapers in the designated container located in your room. If an in-room container is not available, please ask for assistance from the front desk.

Towel and Linen Reuse

In keeping with our commitment to protect the natural environment, we offer you the option of reusing your towels and bed linens. To participate in the towel reuse program, please leave them on a towel hook, the towel rack or the shower curtain rod. If you prefer a daily change of towels, please leave them on the floor.

Our housekeeping staff will make your bed during daily service and will replace your linens every third day during multi-night stays. If you would prefer your linens changed more frequently, simply leave the linen reuse card on your pillow or contact the front desk and we will be happy to honor your request.

Green Meetings, Events & Weddings

Meeting and wedding planners have the opportunity to arrange events that will incorporate sustainable practices in every facet of your group’s experience.  Legendary Lodging offers organic, natural and regional cuisine and beverage options, environmentally friendly and sustainable décor, recycling, and resources for carbon-offset programs to minimize travel impacts for groups of any size.   From the initial planning stages to the final meeting or event, our team is prepared to offer you with helpful green planning tips and assist every step of the way.

Appetite for Life - Sustainable Cuisine

All of our hospitality properties are committed to expand our commitment to offer guests healthy and sustainable food and beverage options through the Appetite for Life program. Building on our commitments to offer natural meats and organic dairy in our mountain resort dining operations, our sustainable cuisine program creatively integrates the freshest organic, natural, seasonal, sustainably managed ingredients. Look for sustainably sourced seafood and fish selections, and other items such as organic and natural meat, poultry, dairy and produce as well as other local and regionally sourced products carefully selected to enhance the guest dining experience.

Guests at our resorts will truly enjoy other unique tastes and treats with menu selections that truly connect guests to the iconic locations they are visiting and the extraordinary talent and passion of our culinary teams.

Sustainable Fish and Seafood

We are committed to do our part to support global environmental protection and to do this at our hotels and resorts, our on-mountain dining outlets offer fish and seafood selections from sustainably managed sources. We utilize several resources to guide our purchasing decisions including the Seafood Choices Alliance, Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program, and the Marine Stewardship Council.
For more information on choosing fish and seafood that is healthier for you and the environment visit:

Monterey Bay Aquarium
Seafood Choices Alliance
Marine Stewardship Council 

Renewable Energy

In keeping with our commitment to reduce overall companywide energy use we continue to look for opportunities to invest in technologies to support the on site generation of renewable energy.  We are evaluating opportunities to utilize such technologies as solar, geothermal, and micro hydro to generate power to support our operations. To date we have invested in several projects.

In summer 2008, Vail Mountain partnered with the U.S. Forest Service and Holy Cross Electric Company to harness Colorado sunshine for its energy needs in several public buildings at the top of the Eagle Bahn gondola. Vail Mountain installed an 8.4-kilowatt photovoltaic system consisting of 42 200-watt panels on the roof of Bailey's restaurant at Adventure Ridge. This new highly efficient system provides enough solar energy to power the entire building, and the excess electricity will light other facilities at Eagle's Nest.

We also have installed solar photovoltaic panels in place at the information kiosk at River Run in Keystone and plans are underway at The Landings St. Lucia to install a solar hot water heating system.

Energy and Water Conservation

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the lodging industry, as part of its total energy usage, spends on average nearly 60% of its budget to heat, provide water to and light its facilities. This provides all hotels and resorts with prime opportunities to reduce demands.

To more aggressively address energy conservation, in the fall of 2008, Vail Resorts launched an internal campaign, "Use Less, Do More" to reduce its energy consumption including electricity and fuels in our on-mountain facilities, hotels, chairlifts, and fleet operations to reach a companywide 10% energy reduction by 2010.  As of August 1, 2009 companywide we have reduced energy use by approximately 6% over a 2008 baseline.

Several efforts are underway, including:

• Lighting retrofits 
• Installation of timers and motion sensors to power down lighting and heating, cooling and ventilation systems and other equipment 
• Employee carpool incentives for business travel 
• Idlewise vehicle idling for never more than five minutes or carpooling 
• Installation of EnergyStar rated equipment and electronics 
• Window replacements 
• Employee and guest education

To reduce water usage we continue to install  low-flow faucets, showerheads, toilets, kitchen sprayers and water efficient laundry equipment, as well as the integration of EPA EnergyStar™ rated appliances is becoming common practice throughout all of our properties.

Our resorts actively engage our guests in conservation efforts, such as offering visitors the choice to reuse their daily linens and towels to reduce water and energy usage.

Waste Reduction and Recycling

From food and beverage operations to guest rooms to administrative operations we continue to look for opportunities to reduce waste generated and increase recycling and reuse efforts.  We work actively with our procurement team, vendors and suppliers, and our local communities to look for opportunities to reduce waste on the front end of our operations and to source products that are made with recyclable, renewable, resource efficient, and local and regional materials whenever possible.

At nearly all of our operations at least basic level recycling programs are in place to manage paper, plastics, glass and metals. In some of our operations including Keystone and Breckenridge resorts we participate in food waste composting programs. In fact, through our Keystone operations more than five tons each month of food waste is being diverted to the Summit County composting facility.

To reduce the amount of partially used shampoo, shower gels, lotions, and conditioners sent to the landfill each year, we are partnering with Clean the World (CTW), a non-profit organization committed to the prevention of illness and death caused by acute respiratory infection and diarrheal disease in countries across the globe. Each year over 5 million lives are lost to these diseases with the majority being children under five.
Products collected at some of our Legendary Lodging properties will be sent to CTW to be sanitized and repackaged and sent to developing nations to support proper health and hygiene efforts. For more information visit www.cleantheworld.org.

To support local efforts, products from Keystone Hospitality properties are being donated to The Gathering Place located in Denver.

Forest Health and Watershed Restoration – The Hayman Restoration Partnership

In September 2009, our long standing partnership was taken to the next level when we announced “Treasured Landscapes: The Hayman Restoration Partnership - Working Together for Healthy Forests and Clean Water,” a collaborative effort between Vail Resorts, the National Forest Foundation (NFF) and the USDA Forest Service, in one of the most comprehensive forest health and watershed public-private partnership post-fire restoration projects in the country. Seven years after Colorado’s largest and most devastating wildfire this collaborative work project aims to restore forest health and water quality to this critical ecosystem that supplies water to more than 75% of the Denver metro area.

The total project area for the Hayman Restoration Partnership is over 115,000 thousand acres, with the majority of the work honing in on 45,000 acres of the most severely affected areas in four watersheds that feed into the Upper South Platte River, the main water supply for Denver. Instead of focusing on only one element of restoration, such as planting trees, the Hayman Restoration project will address the entire ecosystem with a multi-faceted and strategic work plan involves restoration and planting of native species in these four watersheds - West Creek, Manitou Park, Lower Trout and Four Mile.

An essential investment.

We offer guests at our mountain resorts the opportunity to participate in this special fundraising effort by contributing $1 on season passes, $1 on online lift ticket transactions and $1 per room night at our Colorado-based lodging properties.

Proceeds collected by our Company are matched with additional funds by the National Forest Foundation and donated to fund conservation projects in the two forest areas, which total more than 2.3 million acres. These projects include trail and forest recreation improvements, wildlife habitat and watershed restoration, and community-based forestry programs.

Making a difference.

In April 2008, Vail Resorts was awarded by the National Forest Foundation for making conservation a priority and for our commitment to engage communities in natural resource stewardship. To date, Vail Resorts has generated guest contributions totaling $711,729. With matched funds, the total amount is more than $1 million ($1,067,593) that has been raised for projects to restore and improve our neighboring national forests in Colorado and California.

Proceeds raised through this program has helped to accomplish more than 50 on-the-ground conservation projects in our national forests for future generations to enjoy. We salute the many organizations and hundreds of volunteers for their tireless work and countless hours improving the health of our national forests. Here are just a few of those projects.

• Young adolescents from the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps performed trail maintenance and and undertook forest rehabilitation on areas in Summit County, Golden Horseshoe in the Dillon Ranger District and Holy Cross Wilderness in the Eagle Ranger District. They also completed critical alpine restoration work on Pyramid Peak and trail maintenance work on all 14,000-foot peaks in the White River National Forest.
• The Wilderness Volunteers constructed waterbars, checkdams, turnpikes and a 20-foot double log stringer bridge to prevent erosion on the Gore Range Trail and Maroon-Snowmass Trail in the White River National Forest.
• More than 200 volunteers from the Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers reconstructed and performed maintenance work on four trail projects in the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District.
• Groups from the Eagle County Youth Conservation Corps built trails and abated weeds for wildfire mitigation on several forest health projects in Eagle County.
• Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado delivered 690 volunteer hours to complete six trail restoration and maintenance projects in both Summit and Eagle counties. Several of those projects included Mahan Lakes Trail, Silverthorne/Wheeler Adopt-A-Trail, Ptarmigan Adopt-A-Trail, Golden Horseshoe Adopt-A-Trail and the Mt. Royal/Masontown Trail Training Project.

Learn more about this contribution program, the National Forest Foundation, or join Friends of the Forest™. 

Find out more about program contributions and projects to date.

Green Golf

Vail Resorts Inc. currently operates six courses, with four currently certified within the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary program. Vail Resorts intends to bring its remaining course into the program and look for other measures to go beyond even the Audubon standards including community stewardship projects; habitat restoration; integrating green practices into other course facilities; and supporting environmental practices with neighboring courses.

"Give & Getaway" Volunteer Vacations

All of our hospitality operations have partnered with the U.S. Forest Service, the Eagle, Dillon and Roaring Fork Ranger Districts and the White River National Forest in Colorado; Hyde Park in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Grand Teton National Park in Jackson, Wyoming; and, local organic farmers in St. Lucia  to offer a volunteer vacation package at all of it resort locations. Guests who book the Give & Getaway package - available primarily during the summer months - will participate in trail restoration, watershed and other conservation projects as well as sustainable farming and agriculture efforts and receive a discounted nightly lodging rate and exclusive gifts.

Give & Getaway package—Restoration projects offered as part of the Give & Getaway package will improve the recreational quality of nearby trails, as well as the health of the local forest and streams by controlling erosion caused by degraded trails. Volunteers, ages 16 and older are invited to participate in these enriching and fun projects in cooperation with employees at each of our resorts while indulging in a relaxing stay at one of our resort locations.

Similar volunteer projects are a great activity for meeting and event attendees, family reunions, wedding parties, and other groups to provide a fun team building or casual get together that also gives back to the local community. Learn More.

RockResorts Spas®

RockResorts Spas®, in keeping with the locations they inhabit, are intricately connected to the environments that surround them. Each RockResorts Spa—with its locally inspired facilities, indigenous spa treatments and creative use of local and regional products—embraces and reflects its unique setting. In addition, each spa honors RockResorts' long-standing tradition of combining luxury and fitness by offer relaxing spa treatments, exceptional amenities (including fitness centers, lap pools, saunas, and more) and a variety of services ranging from facials, massages and body wraps, to yoga, Pilates and salon services.