The One I Didn’t Expect: Copper Mountain

Copper Mountain wasn’t the resort I was most excited about on our Colorado road trip. In truth, I didn’t really know what to expect. But sometimes it’s the places you know least about that surprise you most. We arrived for one day. I left wishing we had several more.

There’s a danger when you’re doing a ski road trip that you arrive at every mountain carrying a set of expectations with you.

Steamboat was somewhere I’d really wanted to ski. Winter Park had its reputation and Mary Jane. Copper was different. I knew the name, obviously, but if I’m honest I hadn’t spent hours studying the piste map or imagining particular runs before we arrived. For some completely irrational reason, I’d mentally placed it below the other mountains on our route.

Maybe that’s why what happened next was so enjoyable.

We’d been staying in Frisco, which puts Copper ridiculously conveniently on the doorstep, and because we were only skiing for the day we didn’t have a hotel base to make life easy. We parked up and started the slightly inelegant process of getting ourselves ready beside the car, pulling on ski trousers and boots and sorting out gloves, helmets and everything else while standing on tarmac.

There’s something simultaneously annoying and quite cool about getting changed in a ski resort car park. It’s not exactly luxurious, but it does feel like you’re there for one reason. You’re not checking in, unpacking or worrying about whether the room has a view. You’re putting your boots on because there’s a mountain over there and you’ve come to ski it.

We started walking towards Center Village and, initially at least, my inexplicably low expectations felt fairly safe.

Then, within seconds, everything changed.

I just liked it

I’m not sure I can give you one particularly clever reason why I fell for Copper so quickly.

I just did.

You emerge into Center Village and it somehow feels right. There was a buzz without it feeling busy, it was cool without feeling remotely pretentious and there were enough shops, cafés, bars and places to stop to give it some life without the whole thing feeling as though somebody had built a shopping centre at the bottom of a ski lift.

The modern word is probably vibe, and Copper had it.

There were people wandering around in ski boots, others sitting outside with coffees, music somewhere in the background and the lifts rising straight out of the village towards the mountain. Nothing felt particularly grand or showy and yet almost immediately I found myself thinking that I’d happily stay here.

It was a completely instinctive reaction.

Camp Hale Outfitters probably helped. It’s one of those incredibly useful American ski resort spaces that manages to combine several things you actually need under one roof. There’s ski and outdoor clothing and equipment, lockers, guest services and a coffee shop, so you can wander in, have a look around, grab a coffee, sort your stuff and head outside to ski.

We didn’t need the lift ticket side of things because once again our Ikon Passes were sitting in our pockets. Copper is on Ikon, so our entire ticketing experience consisted of walking towards the lift.

After Steamboat and Winter Park, I’d already begun taking this for granted, which is probably the greatest compliment you can give it. On a road trip, that ability to arrive at yet another mountain and simply start skiing makes the whole adventure feel wonderfully spontaneous.

Coffee finished, skis on, pass in pocket.

Copper had already won me over at the bottom.

Now it had to do the same on the mountain.

A mountain that makes sense

One of Copper’s great strengths becomes apparent remarkably quickly because the mountain has a natural progression from easier to harder terrain as you travel across it.

Somewhere among the trees, bumps and deep snow, Copper gave me exactly that.

I think the area was Lone Forest, although what I remember much more clearly than the name is the experience of being in it. We found ourselves properly off piste among the trees, working our way through deep snow and moguls where every turn required a little thought.

This wasn’t effortless cruising anymore. It was physical, slightly messy skiing, picking a route through the trees and trying to keep enough rhythm through the bumps while the snow constantly tempted you towards another line.

And I loved it.

There’s something immensely satisfying about that sort of skiing with a mate because nobody really cares what it looks like. You stop occasionally, laugh at whatever happened during the previous hundred metres, catch your breath and then set off again.

At one point there was a fallen tree across the line.

Over it we went.

Then eventually, after all that work among the trees and bumps, we suddenly burst back out into sunshine.

Blue sky above us. Wide, beautifully groomed pistes stretching away ahead and that glorious feeling of letting the skis run again after everything you’d just negotiated.

It felt like a reward.

We’d worked for those easy turns and suddenly we were flying across perfect Colorado groomers with the sun out, legs burning and enormous smiles on our faces.

It was one of my favourite moments of the whole road trip.

And I hadn’t particularly been looking forward to Copper.

Lunch just got serious

Then we found The Aerie.

I’ve eaten in a lot of mountain restaurants over the years and this might genuinely be one of the best mountain stops I’ve come across.

Copper opened The Aerie for the 2023/24 season at the top of the American Eagle lift, and this isn’t some little wooden hut where you’re fighting for a table with a tray of chips. It’s a 25,000 square foot, two storey mountain lodge with a restaurant, bar, lounge and huge views across the Gore and Ten Mile ranges. The gondola actually unloads onto its upper level.

And then there are the terraces.

Huge expanses of outdoor space where you can sit in the Colorado sunshine, ski boots undone slightly, something cold in front of you and the mountains spread out around you.

This is dangerous territory on a one day visit.

We’d come to ski as much of Copper as possible, but places like The Aerie make you start renegotiating the day’s priorities. Another drink? Perhaps. Stay another ten minutes? Definitely. Lunch taking considerably longer than originally planned? Almost inevitable.

There’s something about a great mountain restaurant that becomes part of the ski day rather than interrupting it. You sit there looking back at where you’ve just skied, talking about where you’re heading next and watching other skiers arrive with exactly the same slightly delighted expression.

For me, The Aerie absolutely nailed that.

There’s a lot more mountain up there

Had we been staying for several days, there’s considerably more of Copper I’d have wanted to explore.

Tucker Mountain in particular adds another level to the place. The Three Bears chair accesses 273 acres of terrain that previously required hiking or snowcat access, with Copper describing Tucker’s north facing slopes as some of its best expert terrain. The summit there reaches 12,337 feet and the aspect helps preserve powder after storms.

Then there are the bowls and high alpine terrain that make you realise Copper is far more serious a ski mountain than my pre trip assumptions had given it credit for.

But perhaps having only one day actually helped.

There was no temptation to say we’ll do that tomorrow. We just kept moving, working our way around the mountain, disappearing into things that looked interesting and gradually realising how much variety Copper manages to pack into a single ski area.

The mountain is easy to understand without being remotely boring, and that’s quite an achievement.

Back to that vibe

Eventually the lifts began winding down and we found ourselves back where we’d started, except my opinion of Copper was now almost embarrassingly different from the one I’d arrived with that morning.

Center Village was still buzzing.

And this is when I realised that the feeling I’d had first thing wasn’t simply excitement at arriving somewhere new.

Copper genuinely has something about it.

Perhaps it’s because Center Village sits right at the heart of the skiing, with the American Eagle and American Flyer lifts immediately accessible and shops, food, drink and accommodation all around you.

But that doesn’t entirely explain it.

Plenty of ski resorts have cafés and shops. Plenty have nice buildings and convenient lifts. You can design all of those things on a drawing board and still somehow end up with somewhere that doesn’t have any soul.

Copper didn’t feel like that.

It felt relaxed and comfortable, like somewhere you didn’t need to make any effort to fit in. Nobody seemed particularly interested in whether you had the latest kit or were staying in the smartest accommodation. People were there to ski, have a coffee, sit in the sunshine, meet friends and enjoy themselves.

Maybe that’s the vibe I was trying to put my finger on.

Whatever it was, I liked being there.

A lot.

And then came the nachos

There are moments in life when moderation is important. After a full day skiing Copper Mountain is not one of them.

We finished at Downhill Duke’s, ordered some beers and made what appeared at the time to be the perfectly reasonable decision to order nachos.

What arrived was enormous. Not American portions are quite big enormous. Properly, comically, why does this plate need to be this size? enormous.

A mountain of tortilla chips buried under everything you’d hope tortilla chips might be buried under, placed between two people who had spent the entire day skiing and therefore felt completely justified in attempting to finish it.

It was magnificent.

We sat there with cold beers, sunshine still around the village and this ridiculous plate of food between us, replaying the day and laughing about the fact that this had been the resort I’d been least excited about.

And that’s the wonderful thing about road trips.

If we’d simply booked the places we already knew we wanted to visit, perhaps Copper wouldn’t have been on the itinerary at all. It was the Ikon Pass and the freedom of having several mountains available to us that encouraged us to add somewhere we knew comparatively little about.

Then it completely surprised me.

“

Perhaps most of all, I loved that I hadn’t expected any of it.

The one I got wrong

It’s tempting when you write about ski resorts to try to explain everything.

Why was the skiing good? What makes the terrain different? How high is it? How much snow does it receive? How many lifts does it have?

All of those things matter, and on paper Copper stacks up remarkably well.

But sometimes your reaction to a place is much simpler than that.

I loved Copper almost from the moment I walked into Center Village.

I loved that it felt lively without feeling crowded, cool without feeling self conscious and developed without feeling fake. I loved grabbing a coffee at Camp Hale before skiing, the beautifully logical layout of the mountain and the fact that within a few hours we’d gone from cruising huge open pistes to battling through deep snow and bumps among the trees.

I loved bursting back into the sunshine after that tree run and suddenly having perfect groomers beneath my skis again. I loved sitting outside at The Aerie wondering whether we really needed to start skiing again quite yet, and I even loved finishing the day facing a plate of nachos so enormous that it bordered on ridiculous.

Perhaps most of all, I loved that I hadn’t expected any of it.

We’d arrived for one day and I thought that would probably be enough.

By the time we walked back across the car park towards the car, carrying our skis with tired legs and ridiculously full stomachs, I was thinking something completely different.

Next time, I want longer.