Our March Copper Mountain Visit

We had a great time snowboarding at Granby Ranch, but it is not the biggest of places. So even back while we were in the planning stages for this trip we knew that Winter Park was just down the road and thought we might take a day to go there or something like it just to get in a little bit more variety while my family was still around. Well as Katie mentioned in her last post we ended up using our last day with Blake and his family around to go tubing instead, so we weren't going to get in any more days with them. But as it turns out my dad had an appointment in Boulder on Friday to stick around for. So it worked out really well to go tubing on Wednesday because we could let our achy bodies rest a day and still have all day Thursday to do whatever we wanted with my dad still around. 

We decided to head up to Copper Mountain instead of Winter Park because Katie and I still had one day left to use of our four day pass. It just meant a little further drive Thursday morning. But that was well worth it to save on the price to two full price lift tickets. So we set off early Thursday morning taking a really beautiful drive across on US 40 and down CO 9, neither of which I had ever taken before. 

It was again a really beautiful sunny day. Copper ended up being a lot more crowded for a Thursday then we would have expected. But we were still able to make the most of it.

Riding up in the chair lift together

Katie and her now more refined snowboarding skillz

Dad following behind, blindly trusting where we were taking him.

My dad can attest that Copper is much bigger than Granby Ranch. He was very thankful that he did his first two days back at Granby after his 10-ish year hiatus from skiing. But he still had a great time on the longer and bigger runs. We just took our time to get down and took lots of breaks. After lunch he got in one more run with us. He then spent the rest of his afternoon relaxing at a sports bar watching NCAA basketball and drinking some beer while Katie and I finished off our day out on the slopes. Definitely not a bad way at all to end a day out skiing, and Katie and I had a really good afternoon together exploring some of the harder runs that she was too intimidated to try the last time we were there. She really came a long way this season... Go Katie!

Taking a little break, snappin some photos

Katie having another really good day so she was all smiles.

Dad making his way down for his final run. 

Katie and I surprisingly stayed out on the slopes til last chair at 4. Somehow our bodies lasted that long even after being out two days already that week. We then met up with my dad at the base and drove our way to Idaho Springs to make the obligatory stop at Beau Jo's for pizza and beer. It was delicious as always! From there we parted ways, and Katie and myself made our way back to Nate's parents' house where we were crashing for a couple nights.

Oh Beau Jo's Pizza, you be so tasty.

This was probably our last day out snowboarding this season, which is crazy! It's crazy to think that the "snowboarding" section of our trip is already over since we had been looking forward to it for so long. It was really, really cool to see how much Katie improved each time we got out. And I had a ton of fun since I had always wanted to trip like this where we could hit up multiple spots on one long trip out West. I don't know if we'll ever be able to do something exactly like this again, but I have a feeling we'll look back fondly at this time adventuring together with friends and family and want to at least try to do something like it again in some capacity.