How Texans of great and not-so-great means have bought a piece of ski country. Vail, Snowbird, Steamboat Springs, Loveland Basin. They are among the most progressive ski resorts in the world, each one boarding and feeding thousands of skiers, moving them up and across slopes and peaks on automated trams with their rented skis and their ski-school diplomas all day until night comes and the après-ski nightlife begins. Not Vail, Snowbird, Steamboat Springs, nor Loveland Basin would exist as they do today without big Texas money. The Snowbird story is typical. Ex-skiing instructor and lodge manager Ted Johnson located almost 100 mining claims in the Wasatch Range-Cottonwood Canyon area and then slowly purchased the small parcels of land. Johnson couldn’t find financial support among Utah’s bankers or its tax-paying community; his backing came from Richard D. Bass, a Dallas oilman and rancher, who skied and who had a financial interest in other resorts. Johnson and Bass met at a cocktail party in 1969; Bass hiked up the Utah mountain and came down to raise $13 million for what became the Snowbird ski resort.