Revely Vail may not yet be as deeply ingrained in the resort’s DNA as Beaver Creek’s Cookie Time, but in addition to a lineup of early-season events and activities like ugly sweater runs, silent discos, and stargazing, the resort’s official after-ski party starts every afternoon at 4 p.m., with barkeeps stepping out onto heated

cobblestones from Bridge Street to Arrabelle Square and ringing hand bells or façade-mounted school bells, summoning skiers from the slopes to tables and bar stools, where Champagne bottles pop, taps flow, and glasses clink to celebrate the end of another day in the mountains.

At 3 p.m., after Lift 6 stops spinning in the Centennial ski yard, it’s Cookie Time at Beaver Creek, when volunteers earn their ski passes by trading their red Mountain Host uniforms for chef’s whites and toques and heading out into the ski yard to feed the masses from silver platters laden with chocolate-chips hot from the oven. Somehow, they always seem to have enough to whet every appetite (doling out 500,000 cookies a season), a ski-resort miracle of loaves and fishes. “It’s fun to hand a chocolate-chip to an unsuspecting guest who doesn’t know about Cookie Time,” says longtime Mountain Host volunteer Helen Hiebert. “It’s the end of the day, they’re tired, and they’re greeted with a chocolate chip cookie, and it puts a smile on their face.” The tradition, which was halted last year for the first time in the resort’s history due to the pandemic, returns this ski season with a renewed fervor wholeheartedly endorsed by a certain blue Muppet: “Me want cookie!”