Late Arrival

Last week I promised a thread on Copper Mountain, so I am here with you today to speak of this fine skiing establishment. Unfortunately, I got a really late start, so my experience of the mountain is limited. That said, the experience was a good one. Cold, but good.

I skied Copper Mountain Ski Area today and, since I was off to a late start, I wasted no time with warm-ups or mid-level runs and got right to the goods. I hit the Super Bee lift and got started in the Spaulding Bowl with Triple Zero (don't be fooled by the name, it's only a double ♦♦) dropping into Cross Cut. Wow. The snow was heaven. The main ski area of Copper Mountain faces directly North, and the bowls are primarily on the South and East sides of the mountain. This week and today a pretty steady 10 to 20 mph West/Northwest wind (man those lifts were cold) has been hitting the mountain. What has that meant? Any snow that has been falling (and even some that already had) has been blown over to the South and East side of the mountain- where the Copper and Spaulding bowls are.

The snow was beautiful. There weren't "moguls" so much as there were these large, fluffy pillows of snow that were like some kind of heaven on Earth to ski through. Wait...what am I talking about "some kind" of heaven on Earth? It was heaven on Earth. All the way down I felt less like I was skiing a ♦♦ run and more like I was floating through the forest. Once I hit some standard groomed snow further down Cross Cut, I went off trail a little bit and I could tell that skiers and boarders have been powder hungry after the holiday ski rushes because there were some pretty marked trails there, but it was still nice. I tried to play off-trail as much as possible today, but I got up so late that the lifts taking me to the glades were starting to shut down, so I was left with thickets and they were no fun.

My second run was Dranpipe (also in the Spaulding Bowl and it was very similar to the first, but I could tell the difference as I moved around to the North side of the mountain- the snow got a bit rougher and the powder became packed. I traversed to the front side of the mountain hoping to get to the Rendezvous lift before it closed (alas, I did not make it), and found the front side was actually in fairly good shape. The snow was groomed, but I wouldn't say packed. This side of the mountain was definitely feeling the aftermath of hundreds of holiday skiers combined with limited new snow (they are reporting 4.5" in the past seven days) and steady winds though. I did rock my skis a few times, and found well-traveled areas in the intermediate areas of the mountain that had exposed grass and saplings.

I never did get back to the Spaulding Bowl since it closed before I could have made the lift back, so I finished the day out on the intermediate and a few diamond runs on the front. It was a nice day to go skiing, if only for a few hours. But hey, (almost) any skiing is better than no skiing, right?

OVERALL: Good skiing for experts on the back of the mountain, decent overall for intermediates, no review available for beginners. Copper Mountain is a "naturally divided terrain", with Bbginner (green) runs focused on the West side of the main mountain, intermediate (blue) runs down the center, and expert (black) runs on the East side and on the back. A new interactive trail map was recently loaded here

RECOMMENDATION: With the caveat that my exposure was limited, I do recommend this mountain right now.

FORECAST: Snow and colder temps until Thursday (it gets to a high of 45° Thursday afternoon. Then, the temps drop and snow is expected again starting Friday with a chance of snow all week (courtesy of www.noaa.gov.

FOLLOW-UP: Last week Winter Park/Mary Jane got a pretty bad review . I wasn't up there this week, but friend of mine used to be patrol and ski instructor staff up there and goes about once a week. I cannot confirm it, but he reports that they have about 8" of new snow and that the powder is fine. He and I may be going up there for a little back-country in the near future. If you are planning a don't rule out the Jane- she may be worth it again...