Copper Mountain

Copper's another of the great mountains of Summit county. Everyday, it's the same tough decision - where to ski today? Since my season pass isn't good at Copper and I only have a limited number of days there, I only get there on powder days. So I have almost nothing but excellent days there.

This is a patroller I met there who showed me some nice woods I'd have never found otherwise.

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I hate to admit what I did this day. It started amazingly - I was way early at the mountain. But there was a big X-Games event the coming weekend. The lifts were running about 40 minutes before opening, but only for VIP's. I figured - what the hell, and entered the lift corral and just got on a chair. The lift op looked at me, but I'd purposely gotten my camera and big white lens out of the bag. She looked at me like "what the hell are you doing?" and I said (not lying) "I'm a photographer".

Now that's not the part I hate to admit. Being up there that early on a snow day was incredible. I shot a bunch of scenics, then encountered a group of instructors being instructed by a guru. I got ahead of them and waited and they came making parallel S-turns in untouched, sunlit snow. They stopped and asked where they could get the pics. No doubt I could have sold a bunch of them.

After one of the above patrollers runs, I stopped to change flash cards. I had trouble completely zipping the pouch I store them in. At 3PM, the next time I had to change cards, I was horrified to discover that the full flash card had worked its way out the tiny opening I'd left.

A sad ending to an otherwise great day.

These next two pictures are from a different day at Copper. The second pic is my own tracks. Not as good as actually seeing yourself skiing - but I still remember how I felt, as I stood there breathlessly in the middle of my run through the woods.

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I put my camera away after a couple runs that day. It's hard to shoot people who aren't cooperating with you, especially in the snow. They think they're getting in your way and ski away - or some get huffy like they're Chinese monks and you're capturing their image.

These are from yet another day, and shot with the little pocket camera. The back bowls of Copper are staggeringly beautiful, and I'll definitely lug my Canon back there this winter.