Question: Vegas trip mid December

[alison wong]

At this point, as long as I have some idea which city I will go, I can leave out the details (i.e. which mtn to visit) later.
I am open to non-Ikon destinations, as long as terrains are good and have good coverage. I saw A-basin and Loveland last year when I visited Aspen. Both locations seem to be conveniently located, just off I-70.

One reason I am somewhat fixated on Copper is, I heard the mountain layout has separate areas / terrains for different level skiers. I am quite curious to check it out.

@Kimmyt - my initial thought was to stay in one place if I end up choosing Denver. That one place will be Copper. But then, as I was looking at the map, I see WP and Eldora close by, I then become greedy and ambitious, forgot I only have 2.5 days.

 

[Jenny]

But then, as I was looking at the map, I see WP and Eldora close by, I then become greedy and ambitious, forgot I only have 2.5 days.

Love this description - it's exactly how I feel, sometimes. I also get this feeling when I’m in another country and there's other places I want to go, just right over there, so close . . .

 

[Kimmyt]

One reason I am somewhat fixated on Copper is, I heard the mountain layout has separate areas / terrains for different level skiers. I am quite curious to check it out.

@Kimmyt - my initial thought was to stay in one place if I end up choosing Denver. That one place will be Copper. But then, as I was looking at the map, I see WP and Eldora close by, I then become greedy and ambitious, forgot I only have 2.5 days.

Yes, Copper does have different areas loosely separated by skier ability. Early December can be hit or miss, as with all mountains, depending on the early season conditions. I would say around that time typically you will get a run or two off of the East Village side of things (blue-black), A few up high of Accelerator and a few off of Center Village (blue terrain). The green terrain usually opens later and tbh I don't ski it often so don't know when it typically opens. The off piste stuff and bowls likely won't be open then, I can't recall when it opened this year and we had a decent early season but @pinto has skied at Copper a lot and might be able to offer more specifics on general expectations with the exceptions of outlier snow years.

Yes, WP and Eldora are close by and you can certainly ski them if you're motivated, but like I said the passes add a bit of potentially white knuckle driving to the equation and I wouldn't do it unless it was peak season and all of the terrain was open, but thats just me!! I just wouldn't want to do all that driving and then be disappointed with only have a few trails to lap.

Of course, if its a bad early season and Copper only opens a few trails by then it might be worth it just to mix things up if you get bored of them after a day!!

 

[Kimmyt]

Thanks, @Kimmyt. I was going to suggest Loveland as a consideration also. They open early, so I'd expect them to be fairly reliable in that regard. I didn't realize that Eldora was your home mountain; I thought Copper was.

I used to ski Copper and WP a lot more but since having kids I find myself popping up to Eldora a lot more frequently due to the ease of access. It takes me like 45 minutes minus traffic to get there, so its hard to beat and on days when my kids have school I can pop up for a few hours in the morning and then still get other stuff done!!