Earl Eaton, a dreamer who grew up glorying in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado as a hunter, a hiker, a prospector and a skier, then looked anew at a nameless 11,570-foot-high mountain and envisioned what became Vail, one of America’s most popular ski resorts, died on May 25 at his home in Eagle, Colo. He was 85.

The cause was prostate cancer, his son Carl, said.

The story has been told and retold: On March 19, 1957, Mr. Eaton led his friend Pete Seibert on a seven-hour climb up a deserted mountain. They crested the hill and before them, on the other side, was a vast landscape of largely treeless bowls filled with powdery snow and boundless panoramas of skiing terrain.

“My God,” Mr. Seibert said, according to many accounts in the Denver press over the years. “We’ve climbed all the way to heaven.”

What is now Vail Resorts Inc. opened in 1962 and grew to become one of the biggest and most popular snow sports destinations in the United States, welcoming millions of visitors.