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High Altitude Golf at the Aspen Golf Club, Photo by Keith BarnholtIn the last twenty years, the golf scene in the Roaring Fork Valley has gained nationwide prominence with the addition of exciting new courses with provocative challenges. However, this was not always the situation. There was a time in the 1970s and 1980s when the only course in Aspen was the Aspen Golf Club, notoriously frequented by a rowdy crowd more focused on imbibing adult beverages than chalking in a serious round. That era has passed, to some degree. Nowadays Carbondale and Glenwood Springs have attracted affluent retirees from around the country for private golf and fly fishing clubs, rustic residential communities, and an active four-season lifestyle of Rocky Mountain fun. Arnold Palmer is known to spend Christmas skiing at Snowmass, so the region can stake claim to some sort of atmospheric magnetism for golfers.

Summer is here and the living is easy. We’ve assembled a list of 10 magnificent Aspen swimming pool scenes where one can unwind, revitalize, and refresh in heavenly waters.

The St. Moritz Pool in Aspen, ColoradoKicking back poolside and taking a plunge into the deep end is a touchstone of many summer vacations. Yet Aspen’s high alpine pool scene doesn’t quite capture the traveling public’s imagination like the glitzy, anything-goes sizzle of Las Vegas casino pool parties, the rooftop pools of Rio de Janerio, or the seductive palm-fringed hideaways in Southern California and Miami. Perhaps it is because Aspen is mythologized exclusively as a cold weather ski destination rather than a place to sport swimwear, drape a beach towel, and spend an afternoon floating in the water.

While the pool scene in Vegas and Miami is hardly under-the-radar, Aspen’s pool scene is one of its best-kept summer secrets.

For decades devoted bookworms and “Dead Poets Society” quoting high school English teachers have flocked to Hemingway’s Key West, Tennessee Williams' New Orleans, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s New York, Steinbeck’s Monterey, Ginsberg’s and Kerouac’s San Francisco, Faulkner’s Mississippi, and Robert Frost’s New England on their summer vacations to celebrate the authors who worked there and assess the creative muses inspiring the great works of American literature associated with these locales. Yet, for whatever reason, well-read literati and travel list arbiters have never ranked Aspen, Colorado on the lists of great American literary destinations. This is understandable, to a degree, because of the exhaustive litany of cities, towns, and regions worthy of such lists.

Slaughterhouse Falls Just Below AspenIf you’ve never been on the river with a professional whitewater raft guide, there’s really only one part of the trip to mentally preparing for: bad humor that makes one smirk, then cringe:

What’s the difference between a raft guide and a large pizza?

A large pizza can feed a family of four.

What's the difference between a female raft guide and Bigfoot?

One's a big, hairy, stinky animal and the other is a mythical creature.

How can you tell if a raft guide is lying?

His mouth is moving.

What do you call a raft guide without a girlfriend?

Homeless

You get the point. However, there’s nothing funny about the vital service a good raft guide provides to safely navigate you down a rocky river while you’re giggling in delight, screaming in white- knuckled fear, or clenching your paddle for a watery rollercoaster ride.