Condos at a Glance: River Club Telluride

The condos at the River Club Telluride let visitors live like locals—and in luxury. Guests can make themselves at home amid the chef-quality appliances in the kitchen and spa-like bathrooms with steam showers and granite countertops. In the living room, families can curl up on leather sofas and watch premium channels on the flat-screen TV mounted to the natural stone fireplace.

• Bring the family: Units include high chairs, cribs, and Pack-n-Plays, as well as dining tables that can seat up to eight. The club offers activities for kids, such as movie nights and video games, too.
• Take a soak in the club’s hot tub, which is surrounded by craggy boulders and fragrant pine trees, with views of the San Miguel River.
• Sip a cocktail in the private bar, where guests can gather around a fireplace and relax. Live music fills the room on certain nights of the week.
• Catch a ride around town with the club’s chauffeur services, which will take you to dinner, the ski slopes, or other local attractions.
• Distance from the Gondola: 2 blocks

Telluride, Colorado: Charming Mountain Town with Wild West Roots

Telluride is full of Wild West history—for starters, it’s where Butch Cassidy pulled off his first bank robbery. During the second half of the 19th century, it was one of Colorado’s most prosperous gold and silver mining towns (some believe more millionaires lived in Telluride than in New York City at the turn of the century). Traces of the past remain in downtown’s Victorian architecture, wooden storefronts, and swinging-door saloons.

Since those rough-and-tumble days, Telluride has established itself as one of the world’s premier ski destinations, a remote(ish) resort known for its rugged mountain culture and flannels-over-furs attitude. In 2012, Condé Nast Traveler readers named it the “Best Place to Ski and Stay in North America” and National Geographic suggests it “may be the most picturesque ski town in North America.”

Set in a box canyon surrounded by the San Juan Mountains, Telluride Ski Resort offers 1,700 acres of backcountry terrain for skiing and snowboarding of all levels. Beginners can warm up on the 4.5-mile Galloping Goose trail. For more experienced skiers, an assortment of blue and double-blue runs keep you knee-deep in powder. And if you take a left at the top of Revelation Lift, you’ll hit Gold Hill Chutes, home to some of North America’s steepest terrain. But the town is picturesque at other times of the year too. Before the snow falls, visitors can go hiking and horseback riding over trails and ski runs, or paddleboard and fly-fish in the San Miguel River.