What A Deal
In 1989, fresh from selling our condo in Southern California, and anxious to check out the great skiing Colorado is known for, we put aside some money to buy ski passes. At the time, four of the resorts in Summit County offered a pass that was good at any one of them all season long. It was called the Summit Pass, and cost about $500 per ticket. We made good use of the passes, skiing over 30 times our first year in Colorado. Of the four resorts, we had two favorites – Copper Mountain, for its excellent segregation of beginning skiers from advanced skiers, close-in parking and snow-filled bowls, and Arapahoe Basin, for its local feel, steep terrain and the fact that it usually stays open until July. After that, with our jobs calling for lots of travel, we only skied a few times per year, making the passes no longer justifiable.

In April of 2000, we knew we would be leaving our jobs to take a year off, and our thoughts started drifting to powder once again. Checking out the ski pass situation, we found our timing was impeccable. Although the Summit Pass was no longer marketed, as Colorado residents we could purchase seasons passes to our favorite mountain – Copper – for just $200 each. In addition, we could use the passes to ski free for the remainder of the 2000 season. Obviously, we jumped on the deal, and did get to ski once or twice in April.

Our Favorite Mountain
Copper is located on I-70 between Frisco and the beginning of Vail Pass. They boast 2,400 acres, including 115 trails and 21 lifts. Over 54% of the trails are advanced or expert only. Built in 1971, Copper has since grown into the largest ski area in Summit County. New lifts have been added steadily to the mountain, and now you really have to search to find any old doubles. The only places we’ve found them are on the really advanced terrain, where there’s never a lift line anyway. Even our favorite lifts, the B and B1, were replaced a couple of years ago with a high-speed, 6-person chair. The new Super Bee is super fast, and I’ve rarely seen it filled to its six-person capacity.

The only complaint we ever had with Copper was it wasn’t necessarily a great place to hang around after the ski day was over. They had a few restaurants and bars, but hardly the nightlife of Breckenridge or Keystone Villages. In fact, twice over the past ten years, it has been our responsibility to decide on a local ski resort to host a work-related event, where customers would come in from out of town. Both times, we passed on Copper in favor of Keystone or Breckenridge for that reason. This past season, however, numerous improvements were made to the village area, including new lodging, restaurants and shops. Copper now rivals any of the others in all areas, and is still our favorite mountain as far as skiing is concerned.

Spring Skiing
In between international trips this year, we skied as often as we could. The snow in December and January was acceptable, but not great. But any day skiing is a great day, and we had a wonderful time. On Christmas Eve, we made a spur-of-the-minute decision to visit Copper and stay over at one of their slope side condos for a couple of nights. A fireworks display over the hill, ski-in ski-out lodging and a great Christmas Dinner at Farley’s Chop House just added to our impromptu ski vacation.

After returning from Asia in March, we had a lot of work to do on the site, and started to get picky about our ski days. Instead of heading up to Copper every day, we waited for snow before packing up the car. To make it even easier, Copper provides a service where you sign up on their web site, and they will email you when the snow exceeds a certain amount. We chose six inches. So every morning in March, I woke up and ran to the computer to see whether Copper Mountain got snow. If they did, we packed up the skis and left for the mountain. For some odd reason, every Monday this March seemed to be powder day, and until taking off for Tucson in late March, we enjoyed every one.

You may think it’s a little odd – checking email to see if it snowed. Why not just look out the window? We’re about a two-hour drive from Copper, and weather patterns in the mountains are not consistent even for five square miles. Sometimes when we got a foot of snow at our house, Copper got just two inches. More often, however, that was reversed and the snow went where it belonged. Copper just closed yesterday for the season, although a storm had dumped eleven inches the night before. Now the resort is gearing up for summer – check out what they have to offer at ski-copper.com.