Colorado Copper Mountain Receiving Two New Lifts

[Ken_R]

What I've heard is they want to figure out lift-served Tucker before expanding the snowcat operation. They've hired a bunch of patrollers, but they'll have to see the call volume and how thing goes on Tucker. There's a concern that there's no hike filtering folks and no easy way down, not even a single diamond black run, just double blacks.

The current thought is to eventually expand the snowcat operation onto the backside of Tucker Mountain where they can patrol it from the Tucker Outpost. They would need an additional patrol outpost to serve Jacques. Hopefully someday sooner rather than later. They've been talking about a Tucker lift for, what, 20 years?

Here's the final map of Copper Bowl and Tucker without a lift:

View attachment 72214

They should require an Avy Beacon to get on the lift... that should weed out most unqualified folks...

 

[mikel]

The current thought is to eventually expand the snowcat operation onto the backside of Tucker Mountain where they can patrol it from the Tucker Outpost, as they would need an additional patrol outpost to serve Jacques. Hopefully Jaques will come sooner rather than later.

Key word being eventually

Glade 1 never reopened because of coverage. There is a lot of debris down there. The crest was 8' There was never enough snow after the fact for coverage. It was a natural release that happened early morning. There will be a bunch of clean up happening back there.

 

[tball]

They should require an Avy Beacon to get on the lift... that should weed out most unqualified folks...

I hope they require beacons. We'll see. They set some precedence by giving folks with beacons priority on the snowcats for the last few years, basically allowing cutting the line.

I'll put myself out there as dumb ass #1 reason they should require beacons. On the biggest powder day of the year this March, I forgot to wear my beacon. It's not part of my normal routine and I was rushing to get the kiddos to ski school on time. Oops.

In a powder frenzy, of course, I proceeded to seek the most avalanche-prone untracked lines I could find. Amazingly fun skiing. I eventually found a line on one of the steepest parts of Spaulding Bowl where they had bombed the crap out of the top but it didn't slide. It seems nobody else noticed the beautiful untracked on the other side of the bomb craters, so I skied lap after untracked lap there as the snow continued to pile up throughout the day.

It wasn't until later that evening when an avalanche closed I-70 that I was fully aware of the historic avalanche conditions and natural slides going off everywhere. I really should have been wearing my beacon. I'd be happy to wear it every day if they required one for the Tucker Lift. It would just be part of my routine.

 

[UGASkiDawg]

What I've heard is they want to figure out lift-served Tucker before expanding the snowcat operation. They've hired a bunch of patrollers, but they'll have to see the call volume and how thing goes on Tucker. There's a concern that there's no hike filtering folks and no easy way down, not even a single diamond black run, just double blacks.

The current thought is to eventually expand the snowcat operation onto the backside of Tucker Mountain where they can patrol it from the Tucker Outpost, as they would need an additional patrol outpost to serve Jacques. Hopefully Jaques will come sooner rather than later. They've been talking about a Tucker lift for, what, 20 years?

Here's the final map of Copper Bowl and Tucker without a lift:

View attachment 72214

The Nacho should not even be labeled as double black terrain within the Copper universe and if they ran a groomer up a section of it would be a relatively easy intermediate level way down. None of that terrain (or close to none) would be labeled double black at mountains like Taos, CB, Jackson, Squaw, etc. It is consistently steep but not that steep and it is effectively consequence free. No cliffs, rock lined chutes, etc. It is most definitely advanced terrain relative to the rest of the mountain and will significantly add to Copper's lift served high 30's low 40 degree terrain though. It'll be interesting to see what they do with that terrain once it's lift served and I look forward to the future skiing and cat ride out of Jaques Basin or whatever it's called.

 

[dbostedo]

A lift serving only double black terrain is interesting... Are there any others like that? Deep Temerity at Highlands would if you didn't have an out by heading toward the Loge Peak lift. Of course, some places don't use the double-black designation.

 

[tball]

The Nacho should not even be labeled as double black terrain within the Copper universe and if they ran a groomer up a section of it would be a relatively easy intermediate level way down. None of that terrain (or close to none) would be labeled double black at mountains like Taos, CB, Jackson, Squaw, etc. It is consistently steep but not that steep and it is effectively consequence free. No cliffs, rock lined chutes, etc. It is most definitely advanced terrain relative to the rest of the mountain and will significantly add to Copper's lift served high 30's low 40 degree terrain though. It'll be interesting to see what they do with that terrain once it's lift served and I look forward to the future skiing and cat ride out of Jaques Basin or whatever it's called.

True, the Nacho is a fairly easy way down. Unfortunately, I don't believe there is an easy way to get there from the top of the Tucker Lift. I guess someone in over their head could hike down the rocky trail we've been hiking up from the cat dropoff.

You can argue they shouldn't be double black relative to the steepest ski areas, but I think the rest of Tucker is marked consistently with the other double black runs at Copper and most other Colorado resorts. Here's the gradient analysis from the master plan:



Regardless, I can't think of any reasonably easy way down without hiking over a bunch of rocks given the wind scouring that is typical up there.

 

[tball]

Stats for the Tucker Mountain runs along with the other existing hike-to terrain from the 2011 master plan document:



Those ability levels don't match what's on the map. They are assessed by the SE Group that does most of these plans and can be reliability compared to master plans they developed for other ski areas. I believe ski area can label trails put whatever they want on the map beyond what is required by the Colorado SSA.

Note that the Nacho is assessed as Intermediate as @UGASkiDawg mentioned. The other Tucker runs are assessed as Expert.

 

[tball]

I'm excited about the Tucker Lift, but the sad about how it will change the snow conditions, so I thought I'd post a little documentation of the typical conditions before the lift and give folks that haven't seen Tucker a look.

This video is my first run on Valentine's ever in 2015. I ski the top of Freemont Glade 1 then cut over to Valentines halfway down (at the suggestion of patrol as the top was a mess), so this gives a good look at both.

This was a Wednesday so the cat isn't running and it's several days after a storm. Maybe half a dozen people hiked around as I did that day. Other than the patrollers at the top, I was the only one on the mountain at the time and the snow conditions reflect how little skier traffic Tucker commonly saw. Amazingly the entire Valentine's run you see starting about 1:50 was created by an avalanche in 2014:


This is Freemont Glade 1 top to bottom (starting at 1:54) on another day I hiked around. I ski through all the little trees at the bottom that look like they were stripped bare by the avalanche this year. It will be nice if it's wide open after cleanup.


Tucker Mountain snow conditions will rarely look like that again.

I'm sad to see that fantastic snow and unique experience be a thing of the past, but looking forward to skiing the fun terrain on Tucker more often.

 

[Black Dog]

Interesting that the have to add more towers to the new lift?

"We will also be working with Leitner Poma to make necessary upgrades to our new chairlifts, including additional lift towers to support and optimize the American Flyer for next season."

http://links.powdr.mkt8305.com/servlet/MailView?ms=Mzk1NDI0NjUS1&r=MzgzMDAwMTM2MzUyS0&j=MTUyMDA1ODY2NgS2

 

[coskigirl]

I'm glad to hear the confirmation that they are adding towers to AF. I would put money on one of those being in Alligator Alley where it drops so low on a stop that they had to rope off the area from skiers for safety.

 

[Black Dog]

I'm glad to hear the confirmation that they are adding towers to AF. I would put money on one of those being in Alligator Alley where it drops so low on a stop that they had to rope off the area from skiers for safety.

Chairs a little bouncy?

 

[coskigirl]

Chairs a little bouncy?

Yes! My first ride up AF I was riding with 2 guys who looked pretty experienced. After the first stop we looked at each other and said nearly simultaneously “bar down!”

 

[tball]

A grown woman on the chair with me screamed when the Flyer stopped and rolled back during the early days of operation. It got better but never worked right.

From what I heard there was just too much slack in the line causing a variety of issues. It's a very long lift and that slack must be a nightmare for the control system.

 

[tball]

The Tucker Lift line!


I saw that shared by @Lift Blog on his site, thanks!
https://liftblog.com/2019/06/11/instagram-tuesday-111/

 

[tball]

There are more Tucker Lift construction pics!




Wow. I thought for sure all the snow would have delayed construction a bit. Pretty amazing.

That is one LONG cat ride back there. The video when it was snowing during the cat ride was just three days ago. That crew is tough as nails!

Where do they hide from lighting? How did they get that excavator back there? How will the crew get back there when the access road is half melted? So many questions!!!

 

[Mike King]

That concrete pour was damn frightening -- bucket out of control suspended from a helicopter in thin air -- looks like a workers comp claim waiting to happen!

 

[dbostedo]

That concrete pour was damn frightening -- bucket out of control suspended from a helicopter in thin air -- looks like a workers comp claim waiting to happen!

I'm surprised they don't just helicopter the raw materials out there and mix the concrete on site. Seems like that would work better.

 

[KingGrump]

I'm surprised they don't just helicopter the raw materials out there and mix the concrete on site. Seems like that would work better.

Concern for quality assurance / quality control usually eliminate the site mixed method.
Standard procedures for concrete work. Each batch of concrete (truck load - approx. 10 - 12 cu yd) has to be sampled (cylinders) as it comes out of the truck. Several compressive strength tests will be performed on the sample cylinders by the testing lab in the days afterward. Generally a preliminary break on 7 day and a final on 28 days. All work involved with substandard material will have to removed and reworked. Better safe than sorry.

 

[Mike King]

I'm surprised they don't just helicopter the raw materials out there and mix the concrete on site. Seems like that would work better.

1. You have to pour at every lift tower
2. There’s no water
3. High strength concrete has to be mixed in very specific proportions

Or so it seems to me, although this is am ill informed opinion.

 

[mikel]

"Copper news: Tucker lift to be called Three Bears, and the runs are being renamed loosely after regions of CO (Denverite, Boulderado, Western Slope, etc). Don’t shoot, just the messenger.( And not even sure how accurate...)"

@SBrown Maybe this will be covered tomorrow morning during the update meeting?

All of the chairs have been back on Flyer for a couple of weeks now so hopefully the added tower will make for a smoother ride. Tucker is still on schedule.