Coffee-table magazines might have you believe that a tollgate outside ASPEN only admits film stars and the super-rich. This elite ski resort, two hundred miles west of Denver via Leadville, is indeed home to the likes of Cher, Jack Nicholson and Goldie Hawn, but it can be an affordable and very appealing place for anyone visit in summer – unless you're on an absolute shoestring budget. Visiting in winter requires more cash, though you can save money by commuting to the slopes from Glenwood Springs, less than fifty miles away.

From inauspicious beginnings in 1879, this pristine mountain-locked town developed slowly, thanks to its remote location, to become one of the world's top silver producers. By the time the silver market crashed fourteen years later, it had acquired tasteful residential palaces, grand hotels and an opera house. In the 1930s, when the population slumped below seven hundred, it was, ironically, the anti-poverty WPA program that gave the struggling community the cash to build its first crude ski lift in 1936. Entrepreneurs seized the opportunity presented by the varied terrain and plentiful snow, and the first chairlift was dedicated on Aspen Mountain (now known as Ajax) in 1947. Skiing has since spread to three more mountains – Aspen Highlands, Snowmass and Buttermilk Mountain, and the jet set arrived in force during the 1960s. Development is a burning political issue: tight architectural constraints have been placed on businesses (McDonald's is forbidden to have a neon sign), but the last decade has seen yet more Scandinavian-style lodges, condo blocks and giant houses that remain empty for most of the year.

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