(This is part of my Denver! Who knew? series. Check out the rest here.)

It is wholly appropriate to go on a Vail-fueled shopping spree while you’re in Denver. Given the size of their REI, I’d say it’s downright encouraged.

When else will you be able to strut down a snow-capped street outfitted in a pristine pink down coat, white skinny snow pants (they come in skinny right?), and beastly mukluks? It’s nearly a right of passage for Vail tourists. You get bonus points if you have no idea how to actually ski.

I once joked about my planned Vail outfit to Dave, and he just looked at me in total seriousness: “that’s how most of the people there dress.”

Because it turns out that Vail isn’t really a town or a city. It was never a real town or city. Real people never lived here, going about their stark, mountain ways until Vail suddenly became the go-to-bourgeois response to “Where do you winter?” No, in the 1960s, a couple ex-military, snow troopers hiked around the Colorado Rockies, decided on a nice slice of land near I-70, and bought it. Nearly the entire Vail Village and Vail Mountain was owned by the Vail Resort, and slowly the Resort built ritzy hotels and developed communities of mansions and condos. The Resort still owns many of the condo buildings in Vail, in addition to restaurants and all those precious, extravagant ski shops.

See! It’s all fake! Right down to that last Normandy-style timber facade.

As luck and commerce would have it, the REI on the banks of Rocky Mountain Beach is where the great outdoors meets  rampant materialism. It’s a wonder to see.

Constructed inside the brick shell of an old powerhouse station, the store invites you to meander around its 4 stories of open air cat walks, balconies, and carved-out rooms loaded with gear. It feels like a funhouse, with who-knows-what toy lurking behind every archway.

The women’s section is smaller than the men’s (a first) with an odd amount of space given to casual and sometimes even dressy non-active wear. (Y’all, please don’t wear REI clothes to work.) I picked up a surprisingly chic pair of quick-drying, charcoal REI hiking shorts and a few long sleeve REI undershirts.

Did I have to borrow a wet suit for my white water rafting adventure? Yes. Did I end up hiking in 3ft of snow in those shorts? Yes. Do I even own hiking boots? No.

But did I look totally cute traipsing through Vail Village sipping hot chocolates in my fitted pink polar fleece –open at the collar just so –and chic grey shorts? I totally totally did.