Colorado Copper Mountain Receiving Two New Lifts

[UGASkiDawg]

Yes and Yes


Of course how much I bank on it is the question.

 

[SBrown]

Copper has been spending a ton on infrastructure lately, so yeah, I think they are finally putting the money where the mouth is. Fancy new chondola to go up to fancy new Solitude, so they can do more off-season things like weddings and the like. Expanding the terrain ... which won't cost as much, but the plan is to continue the cat operation out that direction once the Tucker lift is in. I don't know why they wouldn't ... things have changed quite a bit recently, and they realllllly need to keep up with the Joneses and make sure it isn't a little ghost town all summer.

 

[tball]

So glad to hear about Solitude, thanks @SBrown. That is huge combined with the Chondola, as you said.

I've also been hearing Tucker is happening for sure. The final FS approval with the details was pushed through in January even before the Eagle and Flyer proposal:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/whiteriver/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD569316

I chatted with a guy this summer that was recently hired for FT Patrol. He said they had the budget to hire a bunch of patrollers, IIRC like a dozen. They need to staff up to cover lift-served Tucker, see how that goes, then eventually start running the cats again on Jacques and the backside of Tucker.

We had a blast up there this summer in spite of no on-mountain activities due to the lift construction. The coaster is surprisingly fun. We rode it a bunch and finally got the nerve to go no brakes, pulling some pretty good G's.

The Wrecktangle Ninja course is awesome for kids. They spent hours in there while we sat right across at the fantastic new Downhill Dukes dog-friendly patio bar with our dog. A good time was had by all.

No doubt Copper is trying in the Summer. Hard to compete with Breck, Vail, and Frisco, though. All good with me.

 

[Jtlange]

Im all for copper expanding. Its my favorite mountain for crowd reasons alone and if they get some more good terrain I am so in.

 

[mikel]

And Copper has announced how things will be for the 1st couple of weeks. Hoping for Eagle to be completed by Thanksgiving and Flyer in December. Still opening on the 16th.

 

[tball]

Skid road is gonna be scary! Yiikes!

 

[tball]

Good to hear Ptarmigan will be open to the public so folks can stick to the top and avoid Skid Road if they like:

As one of our Copper loyalists, we are excited to share our plans with you for Opening Day and Welcome Home Weekend.

Opening Day and Welcome Home Weekend festivities will take place out of East Village as we eagerly await construction to finish on the American Eagle and American flyer lifts. From East Village, there will be top-to-bottom intermediate skiing from Ptarmigan to Rhapsody to Main Vein plus Fairplay, then back to the Super Bee in East Village via Skid Road. There will also be beginner terrain available on the Easy Rider carpet in Center Village and Green Acres between East and Center Villages. All terrain offerings are weather and condition dependent.

From November 16 – 18, Welcome Home Weekend will entail lots of exciting offers including 2-for-1 Rocky Mountain Coaster rides, raffles from our partners, special après deals at Downhill Duke’s and Ten Mile Tavern plus live music all weekend including DeVotchKa on Sunday, November 18.

As for the new lifts, we anticipate American Eagle to be online by Thanksgiving and the American Flyer shortly thereafter. Don’t worry – we’ll be bringing these lifts online with a bang! Stay tuned for details and visit CopperColorado.com for more information.

We’re excited to see you for Opening Day!​

 

[Jtlange]

Yeesh. Hope there is going to be some good early season snow or this could get messy fast.

 

[UGASkiDawg]

Skid road is gonna be scary! Yiikes!

It's not going to be nearly as bad as the choke point at the top of Ptarmigan that every single skier will be forced through. That will be much steeper scraped down to bare ice within the 1st hour.

 

[UGASkiDawg]

Yeesh. Hope there is going to be some good early season snow or this could get messy fast.

There's already good early season snow but that won't solve the choke points as long as the only way up is SuperBee and the only way down is Ptarmigan and Skid Road.

 

[QueueCT]

Color me unhappy. We're headed out for a race camp T'giving week. It's going to be really challenging.

This is really a major f-up that they don't have those lifts up and running. Wonder where they lost time.

 

[Average Joe]

So are we. Rented a condo 100 yards from Eagle.
Maybe waiting until September to pour concrete had something to do with it

Edit:
"The resort added that the delay in opening the lifts is due to the fact that two physical lift parts — one for each lift — that were manufactured in Europe are currently in transit to Colorado."

https://www.vaildaily.com/news/spor...ay-new-center-village-lifts-slightly-delayed/

Im bringing my rock skis. Ptarmigan will be toast.

 

[UGASkiDawg]

Color me unhappy. We're headed out for a race camp T'giving week. It's going to be really challenging.

This is really a major f-up that they don't have those lifts up and running. Wonder where they lost time.

Why is it going to mess with a race camp? You have your own terrain that public can't access and you have top to bottom lift instead of a two lift ride.

 

[Ron]

So are we. Rented a condo 100 yards from Eagle.
Maybe waiting until September to pour concrete had something to do with it

Edit:
"The resort added that the delay in opening the lifts is due to the fact that two physical lift parts — one for each lift — that were manufactured in Europe are currently in transit to Colorado."

https://www.vaildaily.com/news/spor...ay-new-center-village-lifts-slightly-delayed/

Im bringing my rock skis. Ptarmigan will be toast.

This happened here last season... I have to believe they have done something like this but......If I was managing the project (and I'm not) I would have one person assigned to oversee the status of all parts and components ordered and ensure that they are ordered with a huge margin for error. Then, I would put penalties in the Agreements with the vendors for failure to deliver any parts not delivered in working condition by the specified dates.

 

[tball]

The 10-day forecast looks great for both real snow and snowmaking. Seems like they might end up with a lot of terrain open for Thanksgiving. If they have terrain they can work around the lifts not being up yet and all will have a good time.

Union Creek and Timberline are not out of the question for Thanksgiving, are they? That would be a fantastic workaround for the Flyer not running.

In other extremely important news, it seems like this is Copper's new snow stake!?!?!?



https://www.coppercolorado.com/the-mountain/webcams/mountain/snow-stake-cam

Brilliant! Breck puts their snow stake in a wind loaded spot way up on the mountain and Copper puts theirs on top of a bar at the base. Yeah, everyone's going to Breck on a powder day!!

 

[Ron]

^^^^ interesting that is at the base. And, nahh,that wont be wind affected



"Brilliant! Breck puts their snow stake in a wind loaded spot way up on the mountain and Copper puts theirs on top of a bar at the base. Yeah, everyone's going to Breck on a powder day!! "

I'm good with that!

 

[tball]

"The resort added that the delay in opening the lifts is due to the fact that two physical lift parts — one for each lift — that were manufactured in Europe are currently in transit to Colorado."

Maybe somebody forgot to order the motors?

I remember when the Super Bee motor went out at the end of the season a couple of years ago they had to order one from Europe. It's something like 1400 hp and they only make them that large in Europe from what I recall.

It sure seemed like all the other parts were laying around and ready to go by Labor Day. Anything else so large they couldn't put it on a plane?

 

[UGASkiDawg]

This happened here last season... I have to believe they have done something like this but......If I was managing the project (and I'm not) I would have one person assigned to oversee the status of all parts and components ordered and ensure that they are ordered with a huge margin for error. Then, I would put penalties in the Agreements with the vendors for failure to deliver any parts not delivered in working condition by the specified dates.

That was all done....I'm pretty sure Leitner Poma will be paying a penalty for not completing the lift on schedule. Copper has next to no power with vendors as basically an independent resort compared to VR and Alterra. If you are LP are you going to please Powdr Corp or VR first?

 

[jmeb]

Brilliant! Breck puts their snow stake in a wind loaded spot way up on the mountain and Copper puts theirs on top of a bar at the base. Yeah, everyone's going to Breck on a powder day!!

To be fair...very few people choose between Breck and Copper for the day. As relatively few people buy both an Epic and an Ikon pass. And those that do tend to know better than to trust snow stakes.

 

[Ron]

Brilliant! Breck puts their snow stake in a wind loaded spot way up on the mountain and Copper puts theirs on top of a bar at the base. Yeah, everyone's going to Breck on a powder day!!

To be fair...very few people choose between Breck and Copper for the day. As relatively few people buy both an Epic and an Ikon pass. And those that do tend to know better than to trust snow stakes.

as long as they dont choose the boat!