7 replies to this topic

[stmad12]

I've been wodering about this for a while now......
Copper is already open, with only 2 foot max. According to a Breck employee, they already have 1.2', but can't open intil the 12th. Who will have more skiable acres by Thanksgiving? It confused me, because Copper's snow make-up right now is over 90% man-made. I've seen reports of heavy powder in that area, so Copper shoud have more of their snow as nautral.

It just threw me for a huge loop. Anyone have a reason behind this?

[skierdude9450]

Makes sense to me that the base would be 90% man made. It hasn't been a banner fall by any means, and even though there were a couple storms, it has been mostly warm and dry. The 12th is Breckenridge's official opening date and there may be a number of reasons why they can't push it back (staffing, last minute work, no snow, etc). I couldn't tell you which mountain will have more open for Thanksgiving, but it probably won't be too much at either resort. Hope this helps.

[zeedotcom]

Natural snow generally packs down a lot meaning that a foot of fresh doesn't equal a foot of machine snow, it equals about an inch.

There are a bunch of practical and administrative reasons why resorts stick to a set opening date. I believe that the opening date is sometimes specified in the insurance documents and there may be some forest service use permits that also specify earliest open dates.

[liftmech]

When I saw you had titled your thread 'Breck versus Copper' I was going to have to dust off my gloves (just kidding, we all know who'd win anyway, of course....)

Our base is, in certain places, 90% natural. Others it's closer to 90% manmade. We got almost three feet a couple of weeks ago, and on the upper mountain it has stuck around. Where it's been skied on it's disappearing but where we've had only snowcats and sleds packing it down it's still decent coverage. The lower mountain took a beating in the sun, though. As for who will have more skiable acres by Thanksgiving, that's anyone's guess. There's a storm bearing down on us right now, we have four lifts scheduled to open by Thanksgiving, and if the temps stay low we'll be doing pretty well.

[xman]

How long does it typically take for the whole mountain to be open?

[vons]

I have been at copper long enough to remember a season or two where we had everything by early December usually with the most of front side open by the third week of November. On the other end of the spectrum, last season we didn't open 6(Mt. Chief) till mid-January which was the latest I have experienced the lift opening. So to put it simply opening lift/terrain is totally weather dependent, if we get dumped on we open stuff up sooner if not later.

[xman]

vons, on 09 November 2010 - 07:56 AM, said:

I have been at copper long enough to remember a season or two where we had everything by early December usually with the most of front side open by the third week of November. On the other end of the spectrum, last season we didn't open 6(Mt. Chief) till mid-January which was the latest I have experienced the lift opening. So to put it simply opening lift/terrain is totally weather dependent, if we get dumped on we open stuff up sooner if not later.

[ski9600]

Yep, same again this year. We got dumped on and are racing to get terrain open. I think Tucker will open

This post has been edited by ski9600: 24 December 2010 - 07:57 PM