EMSC
Well-known member
Solid mid-winter day, though the commute stunk
After couple of days at the Basin in late March/early April he wanted to mix things up so we choose Copper. It's a good news bad news kind of thing. Winter park had already closed significant terrain and had 4+" less of new snowfall. The Basin itself started the day with all the good terrain closed (I assume for avi control work). Unfortunately it had snowed all the way down to the flatlands in Denver so I70 was far more crowded than probably any prior April ski day I've ever done. Roughly 1.5 extra hours of drive time (even in a mtn storm cycle usually April is only 15min or so of delays). I think part of it was I70 was shut down for much of the day on Friday from the storm, creating even more demand from those who hadn't gotten to ski on Fri.
Anyway Copper reported 14" or so of new over two days with 3" of that overnight. They nearly parked out for the day and we were way over in the Far East lot ourselves due to the delays. But after getting up the Super B and huge line of the t-Bar we went over to Tucker where there was also a lift line (also a rare occurrence). Fortunately most ski one of only 3 or 4 lines on tucker so plenty of soft skiing to be found. Only in the most heavily skied lines did you really find the icy subsurface exposed between moguls. We did many laps on Tucker before the mostly cloudy skies got super dark and started snowing again. So we got out of the backside hitting Union bowl then Union Meadows before it started snowing pretty hard. My son has a soft spot for Timberline for some reason so we did 2 laps there hauling down the blues which, given the new snow, were a touch bumpy at speed (lot of small little piles, not real moguls). Before heading down to the center village and back up the east side for a couple of Glade 17 laps and one final cruiser lap, pulling the plug about 2 minutes before 4p, having never stopped for lunch. Instead we grabbed some food in Silverthorne and even with that stop somehow made it home in the typical less than 2 hours.
I'm pretty sure that Copper just pulled the plug on lots of terrain today. Likely Tucker mtn, Copper bowl, Resolution, and some of the beginner terrain all closed for the season after this weekend. But good on Copper to have big crowds this late in the year.
Biggest lines I've seen on the TBar in quite some time.
Tucker mtn awaits
On our 2nd lap, nearing the top the lift shut down and 15 minutes later this patroller appeared. Apparently the lift was showing a fault at tower 8 right in front of us. Once verified that there was no visible mechanical issues, it took lift maint another 5-10 minutes to clear the fault, but the lift started back up and never stopped again that I'm aware of (we rode it many more times in a row).
Some Taco time...
No idea the current name, used to be part of Fremont 5
Falcon
Union Bowl
Visibility (and picture taking) dropping down rapidly at that point...
After couple of days at the Basin in late March/early April he wanted to mix things up so we choose Copper. It's a good news bad news kind of thing. Winter park had already closed significant terrain and had 4+" less of new snowfall. The Basin itself started the day with all the good terrain closed (I assume for avi control work). Unfortunately it had snowed all the way down to the flatlands in Denver so I70 was far more crowded than probably any prior April ski day I've ever done. Roughly 1.5 extra hours of drive time (even in a mtn storm cycle usually April is only 15min or so of delays). I think part of it was I70 was shut down for much of the day on Friday from the storm, creating even more demand from those who hadn't gotten to ski on Fri.
Anyway Copper reported 14" or so of new over two days with 3" of that overnight. They nearly parked out for the day and we were way over in the Far East lot ourselves due to the delays. But after getting up the Super B and huge line of the t-Bar we went over to Tucker where there was also a lift line (also a rare occurrence). Fortunately most ski one of only 3 or 4 lines on tucker so plenty of soft skiing to be found. Only in the most heavily skied lines did you really find the icy subsurface exposed between moguls. We did many laps on Tucker before the mostly cloudy skies got super dark and started snowing again. So we got out of the backside hitting Union bowl then Union Meadows before it started snowing pretty hard. My son has a soft spot for Timberline for some reason so we did 2 laps there hauling down the blues which, given the new snow, were a touch bumpy at speed (lot of small little piles, not real moguls). Before heading down to the center village and back up the east side for a couple of Glade 17 laps and one final cruiser lap, pulling the plug about 2 minutes before 4p, having never stopped for lunch. Instead we grabbed some food in Silverthorne and even with that stop somehow made it home in the typical less than 2 hours.
I'm pretty sure that Copper just pulled the plug on lots of terrain today. Likely Tucker mtn, Copper bowl, Resolution, and some of the beginner terrain all closed for the season after this weekend. But good on Copper to have big crowds this late in the year.
Biggest lines I've seen on the TBar in quite some time.
Tucker mtn awaits
On our 2nd lap, nearing the top the lift shut down and 15 minutes later this patroller appeared. Apparently the lift was showing a fault at tower 8 right in front of us. Once verified that there was no visible mechanical issues, it took lift maint another 5-10 minutes to clear the fault, but the lift started back up and never stopped again that I'm aware of (we rode it many more times in a row).
Some Taco time...
No idea the current name, used to be part of Fremont 5
Falcon
Union Bowl
Visibility (and picture taking) dropping down rapidly at that point...