Colorado

• California in a Fortnight? - California
• Frankly, my dear, you'll love it - Charleston
• Blown away by the Windy City - Chicago
• Blown away by Chicago - Chicago
• Haunted by Hemingway - Florida
• We have the keys to unlock Florida - Florida
• My Love Match with Las Vegas - Las Vegas
• The town that cloned Europe - Las Vegas
• A Chorus of Angels - Los Angeles
• LA: An actresses guide - Los Angeles
• The Stars Bite Back - Los Angeles
• Hotel of high fashion - Miami
• Miami Spice - Miami
• Alien Town: Roswell - New Mexico
• How the kids went Cajan - New Orleans
• Seta and the City - New York
• Glamour by the sea - Santa Barbara
• Celebrity Hotels - USA
• Escape to Sundance - Utah
• Dealing in Dreams - Las Vegas
• On the hunt for Hotel California - Los Angeles
• What's new in Orlando... - Orlando
• Summer in a ski town - Colorado

SO THERE I WAS, lying in a bed big enough for giants, with crisp cotton sheets. Having done a few hours’ hiking followed by the best massage in the world, I was thinking in an American accent: ‘Yup, this is, Not exactly roughing it.’

For that is the Beaver Creek motto. Beaver Creek is a ski resort in Colorado and sees its fair share of celebrities. Frasier star Kelsey Grammer is a fan, as are Tom Hanks, Justin Timberlake and Harry Connick Jr. They probably come for the skiing and leave before the summer. More fool them.

Because Beaver Creek is gorgeous in summer. It has snow-topped peaks on one side and craggy, treeclad hills on the other. There are lakes and streams dotted about and the fast-running Eagle River is nearby.

You can horse-ride, hike, raft or cycle – then sit down to admire the view. The bartender at the swishest hotel, the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort and Spa, says that at the height of the ski season, you can’t get a table outside for love nor money.

But in the summer you can sit there in the sun with your shorts on, enjoying a bottle of Jack Rabbit Rosé as the sky turns pink behind the mountain and a black bear grazes near a clump of trees. Hang on. A bear?

The food is beyond scrumptious

We were hiking there an hour ago. I ask my wine-pouring companion: ‘Is that a bear?’ ‘By jove,’ he says. ‘What a shame we have no photographic equipment with us. Dash it.’ Or words to that effect.

The bartender tells us the bear has cubs and there has been an attempt to ‘relocate’ the family. ‘But she came back,’ he said. ‘She obviously likes it here.’ It’s not just bears who like living in this area. By the end of the holiday, the I-Spy book of wildlife had totted up a fox and her cubs, five golden eagles, groundhogs, chipmunks and a porcupine.

Even dinner involved an adventure because we went up the mountain to Beano’s Cabin on horseback. It’s a large, comfortable restaurant presided over by head chef Steve Topple, from Portsmouth.

His food is beyond scrumptious – that night including Colorado lamb and peas, trout with almond wrapping and pineapple baked Alaska. Horse-riding here is nothing like it is in Britain – none of that straightbacked, up-and-down pogoing.

You hop on to a saddle like a big old sofa and then sway gently as you’re taken to your destination. We took a half-day ride up to the ridge overlooking the town, with a picnic at the top. Hot Rod was my misnamed steed – he was the horsey equivalent of a grandpa in a rocking chair.

Also on the trip was a collection of people who went by their initials, including KC, a medic about to do a tour of Afghanistan, and AJ, a teacher. We ambled up and down the steep terrain, through the woods awash with Indian paintbrush, sage and columbines, to a shady spot. It was simply stunning.

‘There’s a huge fine for picking the columbines,’ said our wrangler, Mason, as we pottered past a patch of these prettiest of flowers. Hot Rod immediately snaffled an enormous mouthful of them.

I wanted to do it all over again

The air is thin at this altitude (about 10,000ft), so you end up wiped out after a modicum of exercise. That evening, my green chilli soup looked so inviting but it was all I could do to stop plunging into it for a quick forty winks.

Every day there was something else exciting to do. I hardly slept at all one night, worrying about the whitewater rafting we had arranged. I imagined the terror. I imagined the icy water.

I imagined me eyeballing a turbulent fish. I imagined the worst. We arrived at the Eagle River for our date with destiny. Our South African guide, Antony, explained that we would need to paddle hard to avoid ending up upside down.

He and another canoeist would go with us, shouting instructions to anyone who looked as if they were about to do some unscheduled swimming. We got into a raft with four girls. I was looking my best in a wetsuit, bootees, zip-up yellow life jacket and red helmet.

After practising the strokes we were off. And it was brilliant. We were being rocked all over the place as Antony shouted: ‘Forward. Hard.’ The icy water kept throwing itself down my back and I got hit in the face by waves. I loved it.

At one stage, as we approached Dowd’s Chute and a 4ft wall of water, I could see those at the front with their mouths wide open, before we were frantically paddling to stop ourselves banging into the rocks. Our final rapid was called the Fish Ladder.

Antony told us to stay focused but there was one moment when I just managed to stay in the boat, hanging on by my toe. I wanted to do it all over again.

No sooner had we got back to Beaver Creek and played a game of crazy golf, than I was wiped out and ready for a nap. Thank goodness, I thought, as I leapt on to the bed – just the four hours of tennis tomorrow, before a hike up to Beaver Lake.

At the lake tall trees cast a green glow into the ice-cold water, while the mountain flashes its white crown behind and fishermen cast their lines. We sat on a rock and drank in the mountain air. Back in town that evening we settled into a bar for beers called Moose Drool and Mothership.

There’s a thriving business in micro-breweries in Colorado, and we were determined to sample as many beers as we could. I was suddenly feeling very tired again. You know, you can even buy a tin of oxygen in the town – the tennis coach reckons it works.

The next day I had to get up early because I was booked into a fitness class with Kirsten, a woman with the body of a goddess. One lesson was surely going to do the same for me. Later, we climbed into the car to go to nearby Piney Creek for a canoe trip and a ramble. It was seriously off-road, with some surprisingly steep drops along the route. There were flowers everywhere and, finally, the lake itself.

We started to walk round it, and were surprised to find a sign stating baldly: Wilderness. Hmmm. We turned round, hoping to see a sign saying Tame Stuff. But no. So we asked a man serving at the little restaurant, who explained that nothing could be built or done on the land beyond the sign.

Not exactly roughing it

‘Are you guys stopping for lunch?’ he asked. We thought we would. ‘What’s pulled pork?’ we asked. ‘It’s kinda the pig’s butt,’ he explained. 'Then it’s hung for a while and smoked.’ Lovely. Families paddled around the lake in canoes. Idyllic. On Sundays, there’s a farmers’ market at nearby Vail.

Everyone seemed to have a dog, and even the dogs had dogs. An enormous one the size of a pony was carrying the lead of a dachshund as it rolled behind its owner. We sat in the shade at a bar and watched the world go by.

Later, after a nap, I had a date with our hotel’s Allegria Spa. I presented myself to Tiana, possibly the best masseuse in the world. The balancing hot oil wrap was 75 minutes of absolute bliss with occasional bouts of pain, using hot stones with botanic oils – vetiver and spikenard (no, I have no idea either).

As I wandered back to the room in my dressing gown in a daze, I spotted a golden eagle soaring over the slopes. Beaver Creek – not exactly roughing it.