Closing Day Part 2 - Copper Bowl
April
18th was the 3rd Closing Day of our dwindling ski season, following
Arrowhead and Bachelor Gulch on the 4th, and the rest of Beaver Creek on
the 11th. On the this Sunday, Vail and the Copper Bowl area at Copper
Mountain stopped running their lifts for the season. Copper Mountain is
a place I used to ski when I lived in Denver, and still used skinny
skis that were longer than I am. Once I moved to Eagle County, I pretty
much skied just Beaver Creek and A Basin. But last year, when A Basin
switched from being an Epic Pass resort to the Ikon Pass, I switched
too. It was the tipping point between the two pass options for me, and
after fifteen years of skiing The Beav I was ready to challenge myself
with some new terrain. Beaver Creek is still my favorite place to ski,
but the Ikon Pass offers the opportunity to explore Steamboat, Winter
Park, Copper Mountain and the Aspen area resorts.
Of
those areas, the one that I've enjoyed the most is Copper Mountain,
which has been a total revelation. Last year when I switched to the
Ikon also happened to be the year that Copper opened another lift into
the Copper Bowl area called Three Bears. That new lift accesses an
entirely new reach of Copper Bowl that was only accessible by hoofing
it. When skiing Copper Mountain, I usually
spend most of my time in Copper Bowl because I love high altitude above
tree line skiing like that. Not only is Three Bears pretty fast,
but it has a lot of elevation gain for its short length which takes you
up well over 12,000 feet. It's also a three-wide chair, so there's room
to lay down on it and relax. From the top of Three Bears, you can make a
short lateral hike over to a run called Boulderado, which is an
east-facing run with spectacular views of the Ten Mile Range, the
Mosquitos, Fremont Pass and the Collegiate Peaks. The hardest part of
the run is not being so distracted by the views so that you forget to
ski. Since it takes a short walk to get to, and there's a rocky section
to navigate to get into the good stuff, not many people do it.
Most
of Copper Mountain was scheduled to close on the 25th of April, but
since the lifts servicing Copper Bowl closed on the 18th that became
"my" Closing Day. Due to having a river shuttle to run that morning I
didn't get there until almost noon. I can make it to Copper from my
house in an hour flat if I ignore the fantastical stories my speedometer
is trying to tell me, and for Closing Day I made it there in 55. After
several runs in Copper Bowl alternating between the older lifts and
Three Bears, I decided to head over to Boulderado, which from the other
lifts looked perfect. After a short hike over to it, I saw that the
gate was closed. Not one to let a piece of orange rope decide my course
of action, I ducked under it, picked my way through the rocks, and
found myself atop of one of the nicest runs in Colorado, and that's
saying something. Down below at the more pedestrian altitudes, the snow
was already becoming a bit mushy. But at 12,000 feet it was just right ,
light and soft and ice-cold. I skied down the upper face of
Boulderado, and veered a bit left to get back to the in-bounds area.
There were only a couple of other sets of tracks in the next middle
section of the run, but they were a day or two old and the wind had
already filled them back in.
That middle part of the run was as great as any I've ever skied, the
pitch was steep but the snow had just the right amount of give to it.
Turns were effortless. At the bottom of the middle section, I looked up
and down and saw nary another skier in sight. I couldn't want to get
back to Three Bears and run it again. I pushed off and began the bottom
stretch which seemed to go forever, with just some scattered tops of
baby spruce trees poking through like green pylons. I was being totally
seduced by the snow and sun and perfect powder, much as I had the
previous Sunday coming down from the top of Beaver Creek's Bald Spot.
Then,
halfway down that seemingly endless bottom run my brain turned back on.
I looked up the hill at where I'd just skied, then down at where I was going, and in my brain heard the words, Oh. Shit. My thought process changed from, What Great Untracked Powder! to, There
Are No Other Tracks Here, Is there A Reason For That? There was, and
it wasn't that I was the only smart enough to have found it, but ecause I
was the only one stupid enough to have skied below the point where one
could use gravity to get back to a chairlift. I remembered then that
the last time I skied here a couple of weeks before there is a catwalk
to get back over to Three Bears. Even the faint tracks I had seen on
upper part were gone. The catwalk wasn't marked with any kind of sign,
and in my blissed out state, with endorphins flooding my brain, I had
totally forgotten about it.
Looking up into the brilliant, high altitude sun I tried to determine
how far uphill I would have to hike to get back to elusive catwalk. My
best guess, (now using my brain which was registering some activity once
more), it looked to be at least a hundred feet above me, maybe more.
Now I had a decision to make. Did I hike straight back uphill to the
security of a trail that I knew was up there somewhere, or just keep
going downhill and hope that there would be some kind of service road or
trail that would take me back to Three Bears? I looked uphill again at
would undoubtedly be an exhausting hike, and then down towards the rest
of the run that beckoned me like some lascivious, beckoning siren
calling to Ulyesses with her legs held apart. Unlike Ulyesses, I needed
wax to cover my eyes and not my ears, for the sight of that lower bit
of out-of-bounds run was just too tempting. Or to borrow a different
analogy, would it be the lady or the tiger? I tried to guess where I
would end up if I went downhill. I knew that Highway 91, the road that
went due south from Copper to the top of Fremont Pass would be down
there somewhere, but how far? When I visualized that lower part of
Highway 91, all I could think of was a very steep wall of rock running
alongside the highway. If I skied downhill, would I end up being cliffed
out, and have to climb back up the way I came? I drive that road with
my propane truck a few times a year, but I've never contemplated it from
this perspective.
I
looked at my phone to see if I had a signal, thinking that it would be a
good idea to let my wife know about the predicament I'd gotten myself
into. But of course, I had no signal. Colorado is a state where you
can't drive in the any direction for five minutes without losing your
cell phone signal. Something to do with these damn mountains. In the
end, it wasn't that difficult of a choice, but I'm not sure if it was
the lady, or the tiger. Maybe a lady that would change into a tiger?
The snow was too good, and maybe there would be a service road, and
after all Fremont Pass Road had to be down there somewhere.
So
down I went, to the lower part of the run which skied as well or better
than the top. I sure hoped that it would be worth it. I kept looking
left, hoping to see some way to get back but there was none. I was
probaly not the first person to ever skied this, for surely someone
must have been this stupid before. But I might have been. Nothing new
under the high altitude sun, and all that. But by the time I got to the
bottom, there was no service road or trail to bail me out. I would
have to follow the drainage, and see where it ended up. At first the
going wasn't too bad, it became a narrow tree run with plenty of deep
snow. But the fact that it didn't have so much as a game trail was a
bit worrisome. The cliffs closed in on both sides, and my downhill
options became more and more limited. I had to cross Copper Creek a
couple of times which was under a deep bed of snow, taking care to keep
my skis perpendicular to it so I wouldn't fall in. Eventually it became
too narrow to ski, so it was more like snowshoeing only with very long
and heavy snowshoes. I began to hear the sounds of traffic below, but
couldn't tell how far away the highway was. The sound echoed off the
steep canyon walls on either side, and the highway could be 500 or 5000
feet away, and there was no way to tell how much of an elevation drop
there was. Then the snow ran out, so I had to take my skis off and
shoulder them. The ground was pretty soft though, so the hiking in my
ski boots wasn't too hard.
The
ground began to level a bit, and the canyon walls opened back up.
Through the tops of the trees I saw a movement and a heard a truck
roaring up the hill, and knew I was getting closer to Fremont Pass.
Some signage appeared, and I hoped that maybe I had found some kind of
cat track that I could ski back to Copper Mountain on. But it wasn't a
sign for the ski area, I was at the bottom of the Climax molybdenum mine
complex, and was at least a couple miles up the road from Copper's
base. When I got closer to Highway 91, I saw a bridge that went over
the road which connected to some kind of trail on the opposite side of
Ten Mile Creek. On a trip through there last summer I saw them
installing that bridge, and thought that it was for some kind of bike
trail. Maybe I could ski down that trail back to Copper Mountain. On
closer inspection though, the bridge wasn't for recreation but to
support a pipeline that ran underneath it. With skiing back to Copper
not being an option, I hiked down to the highway and crossed it. There
was a big wide turnout just below the bridge, which made for a good spot
to hitchhike from. The road from top of Fremont Pass was very
straight, and gave drivers plenty of time to see me and lots of room to
pull over to pick me up.
The first truck coming down the hill was a brand new Tundra and it
didn't slow down a bit. That was OK, I didn't expect the first vehicle
to stop. There was a gap in time, and then the next couple of vehicles
that went by were cars. Since I was holding skis and we are still in
the Time Of Covid I didn't expect a car or SUV to stop. For them I
barely even tried, and would convert my right hand from a thumbs up
posture to a wave with a smile before they were even past me. However
there are a lot of pickup trucks in this part of the world, so I hoped
that one of them would let me hop in back. The next truck that came by
was a shiny white F-150, but it didn't slow either. Then came a late
model Tacoma, and being a Toyota truck driver myself I thought, surely
he would be able to tell that I was a kindred spirit. Nope, it went
past doing at least 80mph. Next up was a big Dodge truck, but since it
seems that Dodge trucks have a higher proportion of assholes behind the
wheel than any other vehicle, my expectations were low. He roared past
and I thought oh well, confirmation bias. Then a little while later it
was a new Chevrolet pickup, and soon I was zero for five. It occurred
to me that all of these trucks were too new, and that it would probably
be an old beater that would finally stop. The gaps between vehicles
became longer, and I wondered if I would get back in time to make
another run or two. But I didn't mind standing there that much, for it
was a beautiful day and at least I wasn't somewhere up on the mountain
with a broken leg, or headfirst in a tree well.
Then
a twenty year old red Chevy pickup came into view, and I thought, Oh
yeah, here's the guy. But it was going so fast I didn't think that he
could stop even if he wanted to. My hand changed from a thumbs up to a
wave, and as I looked back towards the pass to see what was coming next I
heard the Chevy's tires abruptly slow. Looking over my shoulder, I saw
that he had needed all of the turnout to arrest his speed but had done
it. I started running down the hill to get to him before he changed his
mind, but then his backup lights came on and I knew he wasn't one of
those people who look like they're going to pick you up, then speed off
just as you get to their car. I've had that happen to me before, and
its very disheartening. I got side of the Chevy and the
heavily-tinted windows opened. There were Mexicans inside, and they
smiled and gestured towards the back of truck. I tried to explain what
I'd done to put myself in that spot, but they just kept smiling and I
got the impression that their command of English was probably about as
good as my Spanish. The back of their truck was piled high with trash
bags filled with recycling. I climbed up on top of the bags and gave
them a thumbs up, and we were off. Before long were going down that
hill very fast, to the point I could feel my cheeks flapping like I was
on a rocket sled. On top of the pile of trash bags I was at the mercy of
the wind, so I dug out my goggles and that helped. Checking my watch, I
saw that I should be able to get back in time for another couple of
runs, and was going to straight back to Copper Bowl if I had the time.
At the bottom of the hill we approached the turnoff for Copper
Mountain, and I expected him to pull over to let me out. But the
traffic light was green, and my guardian angel didn't even take his foot
off the gas. I leaned over the side of the truck and gave the fender a
couple of good thumps with an open hand. The driver seemed to be a
little startled by that. I think that either he forgot I was there, or
maybe he was just planning on recycling me too. We were past the light
and almost to the onramp for I-70 but again he braked hard and stopped
on the shoulder of the road. I hopped out and waved, and with a couple
of heartfelt "Gracias" bid them farewell.
It was a hell of a long walk to the Superbee lift, but compared to
picking my way down out of Copper Bowl it was a walk in the park, (with
ski boots). I was able to get to the top of the mountain again, but was
disappointed to see that the backside was already closed. I finished
that with a couple of fast cruisers, playing my single ski pole like a
bass guitar. It had been another terrific Closing Day, not exactly what I
expected but that's why I won't forget it soon!
Jack Bombardier
jackbombardier@hotmail.com
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