There were multiple reasons for us to ski Copper Mountain, the main one is that it has a huge preseason lift ticket sales - $169 for 4 days without blackout dates. Many of Nicholas' friends go skiing there before Christmas. So we went there on December 20th with some of them. This also allowed Justin to ski with us.
Copper Mountain is a typical Colorado ski resort, wide trails, good vertical drop, snow capped mountains all around. A unique feature of the ski resort is that it has a well separated green, blue and black trails. The main lift Super bee serves mostly black trails, American Eagle serves blue trails primarily with a few black trails, and American Flyer serves mostly Green trails with some blue trails.
Lily and I skied by ourselves. Each day we started with American Eagle lift right outside our condo with a few runs on blue trails, and then moved to Super Bee for a long blue trail combos of Andy's encore and Skid road from top to bottom, and then we would ski on Oh No (a more difficult blue) and Rosi (a short black trail). When our legs were tired in the afternoon, before closing, we would go to American flyers for a few carefree and fast runs on long green trail combos (High point+carefree or CopperTone+carefree).
But there were a few interesting happenings.
On the third day there, due to heavy snow the previous night, there were a few new trails opened with deep unpacked powder snow. Nicholas and friends went to newly opened Fairplay trail and he recommended it to us. Lily, Justin and I went there together. Just about 20 yards into the trail, I lost one ski and fell into 2ft+ deep snow. I could not locate the lost ski in the deep snow even with help from Lily and Justin, I had to call Ski Patrol for help and he found the ski uphill from where I fell!!
Lily's skiing skill has improved tremendously over the years and she is at least at my level and maybe better. One time she was skiing ahead of me, and at the start of a deep slope, she looked back to check on me and fell. I took a few pictures of her when she was on the snow. She was a good sport, smiled at the camera, got up and skied away.
Rumor had it that Japan national team was training at Copper Mountain's half pipe. We could not do half pipe, but we did go to the top of the half pipe to observe and enjoyed watching snowboarders' practice.
The weather was pretty cooperating - it was sunny in the morning and cloudy in the afternoon and snowed at night - except the third day - which snowed almost the whole day. Of course that made the ski condition for our 4th and final day there excellent.
Since Justin skis on Black trails most of the time and skis very fast, he bought a ski helmet. As in the past, Justin mostly skied by himself, Nicholas skied with his friends. During one of Justin Black Trail runs, he fell hard, the helmet must have protected him from serious injury but he experienced some pain in the neck.
Lily and I skied by ourselves. Each day we started with American Eagle lift right outside our condo with a few runs on blue trails, and then moved to Super Bee for a long blue trail combos of Andy's encore and Skid road from top to bottom, and then we would ski on Oh No (a more difficult blue) and Rosi (a short black trail). When our legs were tired in the afternoon, before closing, we would go to American flyers for a few carefree and fast runs on long green trail combos (High point+carefree or CopperTone+carefree).
But there were a few interesting happenings.
On the third day there, due to heavy snow the previous night, there were a few new trails opened with deep unpacked powder snow. Nicholas and friends went to newly opened Fairplay trail and he recommended it to us. Lily, Justin and I went there together. Just about 20 yards into the trail, I lost one ski and fell into 2ft+ deep snow. I could not locate the lost ski in the deep snow even with help from Lily and Justin, I had to call Ski Patrol for help and he found the ski uphill from where I fell!!
Lily's skiing skill has improved tremendously over the years and she is at least at my level and maybe better. One time she was skiing ahead of me, and at the start of a deep slope, she looked back to check on me and fell. I took a few pictures of her when she was on the snow. She was a good sport, smiled at the camera, got up and skied away.
The weather was pretty cooperating - it was sunny in the morning and cloudy in the afternoon and snowed at night - except the third day - which snowed almost the whole day. Of course that made the ski condition for our 4th and final day there excellent.
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