Trip to Copper Mountain

Here are some pictures of our recent trip to Copper Mountain. We had a great time. Now, when I say great time, know that I'm not denying that there were lots of falls on our butts, and the snow was packed, hard. Claudia, Alec, and I tried our hand at snowboarding, while Ethan went with skis. If we could do it over, we'd have at least Claudia or I on skis instead of a board in order to better help Ethan. We know Ethan was ready to go after lunch because when we made one more run after we finished eating, well, let's just say he was a bit emotional the whole way down, making it not a fun run for Claudia. He liked the ride up on the chair lift though. Alec did too, until he got partially squished between the chair and the support pole while trying to incorrectly get off the lift. What can we say, it was his first time. Ethan and I were riding two chairs behind he and Claudia. I thought I was going to lose my oldest boy right there. But, no blood, no problem. He strapped on his board and soon enough was racing down the mountain. And then the chair lift operator started the lift up again. Sound familiar, veteran skiiers?

One reason that we picked Dec. 15th at Copper Mountain was that it was Scouts friends and family day, which meant that we got lift tickets for $25/person, which was a screaming deal. And, Ethan wasn't old enough to require a ticket, so we spent a whopping $75 on tickets, and about that much on rentals. I know, it's still a lot more than the $13.50 dad said he spent on a lift ticket a number of years ago to ski at Sun Valley, but that was a while ago. Sorry dad. It looks like the lift tickets there are now $79, the same as resorts here in Colorado. Although our next trip will be to Breckenridge in a couple of weeks, I think we'll likely go back to Copper Mountain at some point. The resort seemed like an exciting place and the people were friendly. Many of the employees were from Latin America, since it is summer break down there. We said hi to a couple of people from Peru. As a side note, fifth graders ski free in Colorado, so hopefully that perk is still in effect when Alec and Ethan are of age.