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Colorado Copper Mountain Getaway

dbostedo

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Copper 011220 048 ACR Conv.jpg
View of Jacque Peak from Lillie G traverse (the top of Blackjack and Rendezvous lifts in the foreground)

This has been a while coming, but I've been travelling a lot (including some to ski ogsmile). I've finally got a little free time to write up a short report and share some pics.

I wanted to get an early 2020 ski trip in this year, and had originally thought I'd head to Steamboat. But a few friends decided they'd also like to get away, and wanted something we could do more easily with a direct flight for a long weekend. So after talking about heading north to New England or Ontario, I convinced everyone to head west, and we wound up at Copper for three days. (While New England and Ontario got r#@n and warm temps - so we made a good choice!)

We skied three days, January 9th, 10th, and 11th. No big snowfall while we were there, but we got a couple of inches here and there, keeping things nice. My friends I travelled with - Sanjay, Kyle, and Eric - are intermediates and hadn't skied a lot lately, so Copper was a great choice with some long groomers, easy off-piste, and variety of runs. A few PugSkiers came out to meet us (@MattSmith, @MarkP, and @DCagle), and everyone had a great time. (I suppose that almost goes without saying on these trips.)

I'd been to Copper a couple of other times for a day or two, but none of the my friends had been there. It was nice to show folks around and revisit favorite runs. The first thing everyone noticed was that the mountain is a lot bigger than it looks from the village. We spent a lot of the time skiing the blues and some greens off of all the major lifts - Eagle, Flyer, Timberline, and Super Bee. We also spent a good amount of time on Rendezvous, which had really nice off-piste conditions at times, and provided a great chance for everyone to be off the groomers, and ski a little more freely. Skiing three days in a row is asking a lot when you haven't skied in years, but everyone was game and skied almost bell-to-bell every day.

And we had a few smaller adventures and places I hadn't skied before....
  • @MattSmith, @MarkP, and I took the Lillie G traverse off Storm King T-Bar and skied down into Copper Bowl. I'd skied Copper Bowl, but never been up Storm King before
  • Later, we took the whole group up Storm King, as Hallelujah Ridge had been groomed a couple of days before and was in good shape, and let everyone enjoy the view and ski down
  • And on the third day, @DCagle skied over to Alpine with Sanjay and me to try out the steep groomers
  • The same day, he showed me how to take Mountain Chief, and traverse around to the front side of Union Peak, which was a lot of fun, with good snow
  • We also headed over toward Celebrity Ridge and then skied down Gold Digger
All in all, it was a great trip and one I'd definitely do again. That makes 6 days total for me at Copper, and I could do a bunch more I think. On to the pics...

Copper 011220 001 ACR Conv.jpg
Requisite PugSKi sticker shot on my never before skied DPS's


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View over Copper Bowl


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Bubble lifts are nice when needed, but even though it was cold (highs in the teens) we didn't need to put the bubble down


Copper 011220 011 ACR Conv.jpg
@MarkP and @MattSmith...who is always so reserved....


Copper 011220 019 ACR Conv Pano.jpg
Pano view off of Timber Ridge


Copper 011220 025 ACR Conv.jpg
Little Burn bumps in the partial sun


Copper 011220 026 ACR Conv.jpg
Terrific View off the front side of Copper


Copper 011220 027 ACR Conv.jpg
L-to-R: @MarkP, me, Eric, Sanjay, Kyle near the top of Excelerator


Copper 011220 033 ACR Conv.jpg
Skiing Thursday has the advantage of low crowds....


Copper 011220 039 ACR Conv.jpg
... as does skiing early on Friday with a dusting of new snow


Copper 011220 046 ACR Conv Pano.jpg
Pano view from Lillie G traverse with Jacque Peak in the distance


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View down on the Sierra and Rendezvous lift areas.... a view I hadn't seen before


Copper 011220 050 ACR Conv.jpg
@MarkP about to head toward Copper Bowl


Copper 011220 052 ACR Conv.jpg
View of the far side of Copper Bowl... the new Three Bears lift is in there somewhere, but hard to see


Copper 011220 054 ACR Conv.jpg
Kyle, @MattSmith, Eric...


Copper 011220 055 ACR Conv.jpg
... Sanjay, and me


Copper 011220 056 ACR Conv.jpg
Eric at lunch with his A-Basin gaiter he got 20 years ago on his last ski trip out west


Copper 011220 059 ACR Conv.jpg
View of Union Peak area from Rendezvous area


Copper 011220 064 ACR Conv.jpg
@DCagle (Duane) on, I think, Union Peak


Copper 011220 067 ACR Conv Pano.jpg
View of Rendezvous from Union Peak


Copper 011220 069 ACR Conv.jpg
View down part of Gold Digger


Copper 011220 070 ACR Conv.jpg
Skiing Saturday does not avoid the crowds... at least it was snowing


Other Notes...

Lodging


We stayed in Village Square in center village which was relatively pricey, as anything in center village is. But it was a nice place with plenty of room with 2 big bedrooms, and 3 bathrooms, which is handy. We paid a little extra fee to the lodging broker to guarantee the configuration we wanted, but it was worth it. It's always nice to walk to the lift in the morning and be able to sleep in a bit longer.

Lift Tickets

I was on an Ikon pass, so had my lift tickets included. The others got tickets with the lodging, for ~$80/day, which isn't too bad. Otherwise, Copper tickets were well over $100 a day for a 3 day pass.

Food

Lunch on the way up from Denver was at The Lost Cajun in Frisco, which I'd highly recommend. It's a bit of a hole-in-the-wall, so limited seating, but very good. We at lunch on mountain at Solitude cafeteria a couple of the ski days... it's pretty standard, which is fine for lunch. après was at Jack's which has live music and is pretty lively.

Dinner was Eagle Barbecue (kind of meh, IMO) or Gustino's Pizza (pretty good!) in the village. And one night we ate at Silver Heels in Frisco, which was very good. We tried to go to Tavern West Friday night, but they were all booked up, so something to keep in mind for weekend evenings. We also made it over to Outer Range Brewing, and hung out in the yurt for a while with some good drinks.

On the way back to Denver, we stopped in Golden for lunch at Colorado+49 Cidery and Pub... another really good place (try the Peach cider...)

Traffic

We avoided any issues on I-70 by driving up at mid-day on Wednesday, and leaving on Sunday a little before noon. We still hit a bit of traffic on the way back to Denver, but nothing significant. I feel for the weekend warriors out there.
 
Thread Starter
TS
dbostedo

dbostedo

Asst. Gathermeister
Moderator
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75% Virginia, 25% Colorado
Sure does look kind of flat in that pic though.
Yeah... the usual flattening I think. If I could figure out how to take a pic down a slope, and actually have it look as steep as it really is, I'd be happy.
 

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