COPPER MOUNTAIN COLORADO FULL
COPPER MOUNTAIN COLORADO FREE

No one will deny that Copper is a mountain with a bounty of riches. So after all these years of flailing about, trying to find its niche, is this finally Copper Mountain’s time to shine?

COPPER MOUNTAIN COLORADO FREE

“But we feel that our on-snow offerings-the free snowcat operation, the natural division of terrain, the innovative programming offered at Woodward, and our ski school-are where our priorities, as a company, lie.” “There’s no doubt we need more lodging, and different kinds of lodging,” says Rodgers, who acknowledges that the resort is turning away skiers looking for such things.

On the contrary, discussions are in the works to bring that long-awaited full-service hotel to the village. “The people who are looking for a Vail-style village, that’s just not us.” That doesn’t mean Rodgers doesn’t see room for improvement. “We’re all about our mountain,” explains Gary Rodgers, Copper’s president and general manager, over a latte inside the busy Camp Hale coffee shop in Center Village. And seeing how CNL has been trying to sell the village since 2013, there are no planned upgrades. Yet Powdr, which bought the resort for $107 million, doesn’t even own a large swath of the Village at Copper, which Intrawest had sold to CNL Lifestyle Properties in 2004. At the time of the sale, laments about the weak village-not enough beds, no full-service hotel, a revolving door of shops, restaurants, and bars-had reached maximum volume. Bachelor (and formerly Park City Mountain Resort), bought Copper in 2009 and spent the first few seasons lying low, putting cash into necessary but hardly sexy infrastructure items such as expanded parking and snowmaking. Powdr Corp., owners of Killington, Vt., and Oregon’s Mt. (Anyone remember the Russian vodka bar, Pravda?) Intrawest bought the resort in 1996 and spent hundreds of millions on the Village at Copper, opening eight lodges-including Copper Springs, the Mill Club, The Cirque, Taylor’s Crossing, and Passage Point, all between 19-plus a handful of restaurants and bars that experienced varying degrees of success. Of course, that core group doesn’t need to stay the night, which has led the resort on at least a decadelong campaign to convince them otherwise, building lodging and restaurants with the goal of filling beds and tables. But it’s the location, 75 miles from Denver, that’s made the resort so popular with some Front Range skiers, who love the just-off-the-highway convenience. Sitting right off the interstate at the eastern end of Vail Pass, the village and the mountain are so easily accessible that some people feel it lacks character and a sense of place. What’s even more exciting? This won’t be the roof of Copper for much longer.įor Copper Mountain, I-70 has always been both a boon and a burden. Yet here, at the roof of Copper, it feels adventurous, discoverable, exciting.

But even though I can’t see it, I know that right over the ridge, just past Copper Bowl, is Interstate 70, the last vestiges of morning ski traffic trudging by. Had I been dropped here blindfolded, I might have thought I was deep in some exotic, remote mountain range. The wind whips violently-you have to shout to be heard. At 12,337 feet, most are also embracing a few extra moments to battle the thin air. There’s a small group gathered up here, everyone deciding which route will be the most felicitous. The steeps of Copper Bowl, Fremont Glades, and the gastronomically named Taco and Nacho splay out below-50-plus-degree pitches packed with cold, chalky snow. The patrol “dumpster” is the only structure-an ugly rectangular box marring an otherwise lovely view of the pyramid peaks of the Ten Mile and Mosquito ranges. We’ve hiked a quarter mile from where the snowcat dropped us and are catching our breath at the top of Tucker Mountain. A few thready clouds stretch out thin on the horizon.

COPPER MOUNTAIN COLORADO FULL

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Copper mountain colorado