The Wolcott Post Office may be the official hub of this rural oasis 20 miles west of Vail, but the Wolcott Yacht Club is the life of the community. The rustic roadhouse on the banks of the Eagle River at the junction of Highway 6 and Highway 131 (the scenic route to Steamboat Springs) is hopping during Sunday brunch and on Friday nights, as live music spills out onto the patio and into the high-desert scrubland neighborhood. (Editor's note: Unfortunately, the Club is closed at this time, as the current owners have listed this venerable landmark for sale.). Adjacent attractions include a riverside campground that’s a base camp for a popular climbing crag, a zip-line park, a dude ranch where guests make like characters from City Slickers, a boutique winery, and a wild stretch of Class III and IV whitewater that’s a paddlers’ paradise. And that’s only on the north side of the highway.

On the south side of the Interstate, Bellyache Road corkscrews through what was once one of the largest sheep ranches in the nation, scrub-land reborn as Red Sky Ranch, a massive Vail Resorts–owned country club that includes two golf courses (designed by Tom Fazio and Greg Norman), a gorgeous clubhouse that’s home to Silver Sage Restaurant and the Red Sky Golf Academy, striking vacation homes (starting at $1.2 million) set along the fairways, and many available empty lots (from the low $300s to just under $1 million).

“The views are spectacular,” says Slifer Smith & Frampton broker Don Zerangue, who has sold a few Red Sky homes to families from the south who come for the golf and stay for the serenity. “If you want a little more elbow room, then Bellyache is the place to be,” adds Zerangue, referring to the neighborhood’s most exclusive address, Bellyache Ridge, accessed by following Bellyache Road up a twisty, stomach-churning series of switchbacks. The street names (Big Dipper Road) are indicative of the large lots under infinite skies, sometimes dotted with paragliders who dive off of the ridge and ride the updrafts with resident eagles, your lofty neighbors.

Stats
Number of active listings (at press time): 9
Active median home price: $1.87 million
Number of homes sold in 2016: 2
Median price of homes sold here in 2016: $1.74 million
Average number of days on the market: 220