Spent 5 days skiing at Copper Mountain at the beginning of March. We lucked out with the weather this trip - 4 feet of snow fell during our stay and we had 4 straight powder days. Needless to say we had a blast. The mountain has plenty of steep section that made the powder runs very run.
In terms of terrain, my favorite is copper bowl. There are some very steep chutes and faces which are really fun on powder days. I felt it gets more snow than the rest of the mountain due to its altitude and facing. Also because it closes at 3pm, if it was snowing hard the day before there will be deeper powder there the next morning. Within Copper bowl, my favorite section is the ridge on one skier’s left after getting off Mountain Chief Lift. If you are willing to hike for 5-15 minutes, you will find deep untracked powder on steep slope, starting from Bradleys plunge. Another gem is on the right side of mountain chief chair, after 2-3 minutes of traverse (no hiking) all the way to golden crest. There is less traffic and we found untracked powder after 11am.
My 2nd favorite area is off Sierra lift. Powder seems to be deeper there too. It does get tracked out faster here than copper bowl due to easier access. I love to have the first 2-3 runs here during a powder day before heading into copper bowl. My favorite trail here is juniper bowl which is steep and holds a lot of snow
There is another back bowl - Spaulding bowl. It is equally steep as copper bowl and holds more snow. However the different trails in this area are a bit too similar to each other. I normally got bored after 2 runs and wanted to move somewhere else.
There are some very nice mogul runs at Copper: fast east, so much, high line and sawtooth are all quite long with consistent pitch. During the powder day, the first two get tracked out faster than the latter two.
My kids love trees so we skied all marked tree runs and explored many unmarked tree areas. Trees at copper mountain are definitely on the tighter side, by western standards. Because they are tight, there are normally only limited number of possible lines to go down. So fresh powder gets tracked out pretty quickly even with limited amount of traffic. After some exploring, we found some routes that can combine multiple tree areas into a very long and fun tree runs:
1. Turn left after getting off American Eagle lift, traverse all the way into the tree near Rhapsody, ski down while trying to stay on your right and you will eventually ski into 17 glades which is a fun glade, coming out of 17 glades continue to ski the unmarked trees underneath 17 glades between collage and bouncer. After that get down to franks fave, and drop into the trees on your left half way thru.
2. You can also turn right after American Eagle and ski sail away glades, continue into the unmarked trees underneath it, after that you can get into the unmarked trees between bittersweet and carefree. It is a very long single track here and you have to keep going. Kinda nerve racking but it is not too steep and the snow is good, so you should be good. You will come out right under American Eagle lift where you can go to the base.
3. Take the storm king to the top and drop into upper Enchanted Forest then lower forest, instead of popping out, stay on you right to stay in the trees you will eventually drop into sail away glades where you can do #2 all the way down to the base making this into a super long tree runs.
Power stash: in general things get tracked out rather quickly on a powder day because of the Denver crowds who know the mountain well. Copper bowl is the place to be if you want to find fresh snow later in the day, especially the trails requires hiking (Schaefer’s, union bowl) or long traverse (golden crest). Resolution area holds snow longer too normally last until 11; enchanted forest doesn’t get a lot of traffic but it takes 3 lifts from base to get to, and if you ski that trail you are likely need to go all the way to the base which is not ideally; union meadow may have fresh snow even day after a powder day, but it is very flat on top, and run out is a boring green trail taking you to the beginners area, not sure if it’s worth it.
Overall, I thought Copper is a fun mountain. There is a good variety of different terrain with nice bowls, steeps and okay trees. It doesn’t get too crowded even on a powder day weekend. The village is low key with some good dinning options. We very much enjoyed our stay and would recommend it to anyone who haven’t been here. The only small downside is that Copper lacks unique “signature terrain” - like Alta’s steep, steamboat’s tree runs or even Sugarbush’s castle rock. While we had a great time, we are not eager to coming back for an extended stay in the near future. Maybe we will stop to ski a day to break up the drive between Denver and somewhere else in Colorado.
In terms of terrain, my favorite is copper bowl. There are some very steep chutes and faces which are really fun on powder days. I felt it gets more snow than the rest of the mountain due to its altitude and facing. Also because it closes at 3pm, if it was snowing hard the day before there will be deeper powder there the next morning. Within Copper bowl, my favorite section is the ridge on one skier’s left after getting off Mountain Chief Lift. If you are willing to hike for 5-15 minutes, you will find deep untracked powder on steep slope, starting from Bradleys plunge. Another gem is on the right side of mountain chief chair, after 2-3 minutes of traverse (no hiking) all the way to golden crest. There is less traffic and we found untracked powder after 11am.
My 2nd favorite area is off Sierra lift. Powder seems to be deeper there too. It does get tracked out faster here than copper bowl due to easier access. I love to have the first 2-3 runs here during a powder day before heading into copper bowl. My favorite trail here is juniper bowl which is steep and holds a lot of snow
There is another back bowl - Spaulding bowl. It is equally steep as copper bowl and holds more snow. However the different trails in this area are a bit too similar to each other. I normally got bored after 2 runs and wanted to move somewhere else.
There are some very nice mogul runs at Copper: fast east, so much, high line and sawtooth are all quite long with consistent pitch. During the powder day, the first two get tracked out faster than the latter two.
My kids love trees so we skied all marked tree runs and explored many unmarked tree areas. Trees at copper mountain are definitely on the tighter side, by western standards. Because they are tight, there are normally only limited number of possible lines to go down. So fresh powder gets tracked out pretty quickly even with limited amount of traffic. After some exploring, we found some routes that can combine multiple tree areas into a very long and fun tree runs:
1. Turn left after getting off American Eagle lift, traverse all the way into the tree near Rhapsody, ski down while trying to stay on your right and you will eventually ski into 17 glades which is a fun glade, coming out of 17 glades continue to ski the unmarked trees underneath 17 glades between collage and bouncer. After that get down to franks fave, and drop into the trees on your left half way thru.
2. You can also turn right after American Eagle and ski sail away glades, continue into the unmarked trees underneath it, after that you can get into the unmarked trees between bittersweet and carefree. It is a very long single track here and you have to keep going. Kinda nerve racking but it is not too steep and the snow is good, so you should be good. You will come out right under American Eagle lift where you can go to the base.
3. Take the storm king to the top and drop into upper Enchanted Forest then lower forest, instead of popping out, stay on you right to stay in the trees you will eventually drop into sail away glades where you can do #2 all the way down to the base making this into a super long tree runs.
Power stash: in general things get tracked out rather quickly on a powder day because of the Denver crowds who know the mountain well. Copper bowl is the place to be if you want to find fresh snow later in the day, especially the trails requires hiking (Schaefer’s, union bowl) or long traverse (golden crest). Resolution area holds snow longer too normally last until 11; enchanted forest doesn’t get a lot of traffic but it takes 3 lifts from base to get to, and if you ski that trail you are likely need to go all the way to the base which is not ideally; union meadow may have fresh snow even day after a powder day, but it is very flat on top, and run out is a boring green trail taking you to the beginners area, not sure if it’s worth it.
Overall, I thought Copper is a fun mountain. There is a good variety of different terrain with nice bowls, steeps and okay trees. It doesn’t get too crowded even on a powder day weekend. The village is low key with some good dinning options. We very much enjoyed our stay and would recommend it to anyone who haven’t been here. The only small downside is that Copper lacks unique “signature terrain” - like Alta’s steep, steamboat’s tree runs or even Sugarbush’s castle rock. While we had a great time, we are not eager to coming back for an extended stay in the near future. Maybe we will stop to ski a day to break up the drive between Denver and somewhere else in Colorado.
