One of outgoing White River National Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams’ final actions last week was accepting a new master plan for Copper Mountain, one of eleven ski areas he oversaw for 15 years. The plan, prepared by SE Group, includes three direct lift replacements, four lift replacements in extended alignments, four new infill lifts within existing terrain and two expansion lifts. Notably, all projects reside within Copper’s existing 7,343 acre permit boundary. Copper’s operation today spans 3,641 acres and that would grow to 4,154 acres, an expansion of 14 percent. “The upgrade plan works to improve circulation around the mountain with updated lift infrastructure, as well as provide guests with access to new and unique terrain within Copper’s existing Special Use Permit area,” notes SE Group.
Two lift projects in the plan have already been approved but not yet implemented. The first is a six person replacement for Lumberjack on the far west side of the resort. The existing Lumberjack triple dates back to 1981 and takes more than nine minutes to ride. The replacement detachable would run 4,818 feet and access excellent beginner terrain. This project was originally approved as a quad but was later re-approved as a six place.
The second approved project is an Alpine replacement, green lighted since 2006. Even though Alpine recently received a new return terminal, the rest of the lift is nearing 50 years old and lacks sufficient capacity for planned development around the Alpine base. Detachable Alpine’s top terminal would be extended uphill, providing riders access to more terrain.
The most exciting component of the plan is a lift up Jacque Peak, located west of Tucker Mountain, which gained lift service in 2020. A 5,900 foot long detachable quad called Jacque East would service intermediate and advanced terrain in the Tucker Gulch drainage, becoming the highest lift in North America. It would top out at 13,150 feet, soundly beating Breckenridge’s Imperial Express record of 12,840 feet (Loveland’s master plan includes a lift to just over 12,900 feet which could be constructed before Copper gets to Jacque Peak.) “The [Jacque East] lift is strategically positioned to reduce potential impacts to known wetland areas with its alignment and minimize habitat impacts with its location above tree line, while still providing exceptional access to high alpine terrain,” notes SE Group.
A second expansion lift would be installed between Tucker Mountain and Jacque Peak called Thunderbird. This fixed triple would service advanced terrain similar to Three Bears. The short lift would also provide essential egress from Tucker Gulch back toward Copper’s base areas. “The Tucker Gulch expansion is designed to emphasize the high alpine experience,” the plan notes. “The vast majority of the terrain is above treeline, lee to the predominant westerly winds, and well-suited to provide a breathtaking but accessible guest experience.”
Related to the Jacque Peak expansion, both Blackjack and Mountain Chief in Copper Bowl are slated for replacement. These doubles date back to 1973 and 1977 and would see increased traffic as guests come and go from Jacque Peak. Blackjack would likely be replaced with a detachable quad and Mountain Chief a fixed triple in existing alignments.
Another major lift addition is called Union Meadows. This nearly 8,000 foot detachable quad would load west of the new Timberline Express and unload at the top of Union Meadows, providing access to the future Jacque East lift. Union Meadows Express would rise 1,366 vertical feet and carry up to 2,400 riders per hour.
Elsewhere on the front side, numerous lifts are earmarked for replacement. Chief among them is Super Bee, Copper’s first six pack dating back to 1998. The new Super Bee would become Copper’s first eight place chairlift and include a mid-station near the top of Rosie’s Run. The intermediate station would be useful for Copper’s extensive early season race training program. At nearly 9,000 feet long with an hourly capacity of 3,400 skiers, Super Bee 8 would be a monster lift. Alternatively, it could be constructed as two separate lifts like Copper had for decades prior to Super Bee’s construction.
Excelerator is slated to go from a quad to a six pack with the bottom terminal extended downhill to reduce crowding and cross traffic near the Aerie. Capacity would jump from 2,450 to 3,200 skiers per hour.
Rendezvous is also slated for extension with the bottom terminal shifting significantly east and downhill. “Upgrading the Rendezvous lift to a detachable quad and extending its current alignment will improve access to the Copper Bowl area while still providing an incredible beginner experience in the high-alpine,” notes the plan. A high speed Rendezvous would also reduce pressure on American Flyer and Timberline Express, which service similar terrain.
Just below the new Rendezvous lift, another detachable quad is proposed in the Sail Away Glades area. This lift would fill the void between American Eagle and American Flyer, servicing several new trails. This pod would add to Copper’s intermediate terrain, take pressure off base area lifts and improve cross-mountain circulation. Sail Away Express would run 968 vertical feet and transport 2,400 guests an hour.
Finally Copper intends to improve access to freestyle terrain, embracing its mantra as The Athlete’s Mountain. An 825 foot long platter lift is planned to run alongside the existing Superpipe, providing quicker laps. Similarly, a 2,500 foot long fixed grip chairlift is envisioned to service a terrain park near Woodward Express.
The plan also includes significant snowmaking improvements, new parking, restaurants and maintenance facilities. Overall comfortable carrying capacity would increase from 12,940 guests per day to 17,860 – not a goal or cap but rather a planning benchmark. This would allow Copper to maintain its current surplus of terrain for the number of skiers it hosts and continue to provide a high quality experience.
As always, master plans are conceptual in nature and do not constitute approval or timelines for specific projects. However, given Powdr’s recent sale of Killington and pending sales of Eldora, Mt. Bachelor and SilverStar, they may have the cash to follow this ambitious plan at their flagship mountain in the coming years.
Lift Blog 
We used to joke that upper management should have just shortened G lift instead of removing it.. Now they want it back.
Hope you guys go for a D-line for B, I’ll come build it as I have a bit of experience with building large long 8 packs👍
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I remember a couple of conversations with you about a resurrected G-lift when they committed to building the park.
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I would like to see a Leitner Poma 8 person. Would be the first one.
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“The [Jacque East] lift is strategically positioned to reduce potential impacts to known wetland areas with its alignment and minimize habitat impacts with its location above tree line,”
This quote explains a lot of oddities in this current plan. There is a vast quantity of undeveloped terrain on the “front side”, West of the current resort footprint. It’s prime, north-facing terrain with a broad mix of slope angles (and thus ability levels). But this plan instead proposes developing on primarily south-facing aspects, beyond the resorts’ southern extreme. It’s primarily expert-only terrain, and requires multiple lift rides both to get there and return.
From the map, you can see the center of the giant upper bowl in the western half of the SUP boundary is wetland. I get that it’s environmentally sensitive, but it’s part of the special use permit area … so why not allow special use, particularly in winter, when the ground is frozen and covered in feet of snow?
If Jacque East gets built, I gaurantee a ton of expert skiers will be lapping this “side country” terrain. It’s just unfortunate it won’t be mitigated and sweeped by ski patrol.
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those are some ambitious plans! Wonder if super bee 8 will be the first d-line chairlift in Colorado.
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I would love to see a LPA bubble chair 8
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Wow… just wow. That’s quite the dream to bring to life. Exciting, and a little bit sad that things have or will be growing like that. I remember skiing Copper back in the early 90s as a teen and it was fun and not crowded. A very nice place to go to get away from the chaos at Breckie.
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Happy to see a mountain like Copper continuously making improvements to their terrain park. Unlike some other mountains (cough cough Keystone, Breck) who have shifted away from having massive terrain parks & halfpipes, Copper is the lone survivor in Summit County it seems. The new Jacque East area looks really cool as well.
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Once again, I hear things from Peter before from my own management team. Good thing the employee survey comes out this week :) I kid. If I heard here that we were actually *building* a lift before I heard at work, now *that* would be the travesty. MDP updates don’t normally make the weekly newsletter.
This is a reworking of the 2011 MDP. We’ve done a few things from that plan (new O-1, new chair 5, new K-lift) and others we’ve dragged onto this latest version (what was previously called N-lift is what’s listed here as the Sail Away lift, and as I’ve mentioned several times previously A-lift has been on the plan since forever but no traction there). I’m glad N-lift still in the cards, as it will provide some decent lappable terrain and another way to get from West to East.
The Jacques Peak/Thunderbird Bowl project has been in the works for a while. It just hasn’t been on the master plan. Patrol has been doing avalanche mitigation and snowpack studies there for years. I just missed out on a lap through T-bird (they did it on a Tuesday and I work my other job then, I was bummed). I hadn’t heard much about it until this past month when I talked with a friend of mine who has been throwing a lot of those bombs. It will require a lot of infrastructure; I imagine we’ll have to negotiate with Climax to bring power up through their property from the Mayflower substation as the current line into Copper Bowl is maxed out. It will be interesting to see how it skis since T-bird faces southeast and Jacques proper mostly east. The fun stuff will be on the southeast ridge of Jacques.
Muni, to your point about the relative exposures and the sheer amount of terrain on the western boundary of our SUP- we have two lifts planned in there (9 and 10, the new ones on this map are 7 and 8) and they would provide access to a ton of terrain. It would be an amazing section of the mountain. Unfortunately for us the local lynx have moved in there and we can’t develop it at the moment (which is okay). I will be interested to see how we operate the lifts planned now; the current chair 5 closes at 1430 and the two new lifts would probably have to close at 1400 for sweeps unless we hire another 10 patrollers. It will be a limited window and a long slog to get there, as you say.
Ryan G- You’ve skied here before I hired on and I kinda envy you that. My first year was when Intrawest was finishing the base development. We were still a locals’ (and that includes front range day-trippers) area then, but things were already beginning to change. We’re still a great mountain and I love working here, but I wish I had been able to ski here back before the village and when everyone knew the lifts by letters, not just us. Such is life, though :) If we build all of this before I retire I would be surprised, as it will require *a lot* of background work.
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a lot of background work and money. But I’ll still be happy to ski Copper. Great people working there.
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Question: You mentioned long slog. Wouldn’t Flyer + Union Meadows get you to JE-B to JE-2 for intermediate ingress?Question: Not being a local, is there enough snow on the ridge to build a road for JE-C intermediate egress?
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Ya same Question. Having to wait for Three Bears to open to get to Jacques would seem to make the whole thing very impractical, given that just light snow and some wind requires a huge amount of blasting and patrol work to get Three Bears open. Most snow days I’ve been back there it seems Three Bears doesn’t open till 11:30 to noonish. Giving just 2 to 3ish hours of operation with the 2:30pm close. Compound that with having to get additional lifts open that require Three Bears (assuming that new Union lift doesn’t provide access), and it would seem it would be almost impossible to open the area on powder or snow days (or even after moderate wind events).
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JE-B is a snow road from the top of the Union lift (what we call Moon Saddle) and will be relatively flat. It should probably work to get into Jacques Basin. That would definitely be another way if chair 5 is closed.
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I’m not nearly as plugged in as the folks on this forum, but my guess is that Union Meadows would be one of the later additions in this plan. Just so much more capital to add entirely new pods than it is to replace existing lifts or even adding infill ones like Sail Away. All of which is to say, if T-Bird and JE ever go in, it shouldn’t be assumed that Union Meadows will be there in parallel, or even close to that, to facilitate more convenient access avoiding Lift 5.
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This basically fixes the biggest problems with lifts at copper.
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yes this will be Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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A very impressive set of upgrade plans. The 8-pack Super Bee stands out, especially if it stays as one machine. At 3400 pph, that will be one of the biggest lifts on the continent. Some back-of-the-napkin VTFH math shows it will narrowly sit behind Sun Valley’s Challenger as the biggest chairlift in North America, but pass Big Sky’s Madison 8 as the biggest 8-pack.
The elevation on the Jacque East chair is insane. A mile long high speed quad topping out at a dramatic 13er summit, what a lift ride that will be! Building that lift would be a wild challenge, can’t imagine there are any roads in that area…?
Pretty cool to see a ski area pursue advanced terrain expansion/improvement so aggressively. With Steamboat finishing a massive set of upgrades and Winter Park planning their own, maybe we are entering some sort of Colorado arms race. Capital intensive for sure, but as Peter pointed out Powdr might be in the perfect position to pull it off.
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There actually is an old road that goes up into that basin east of Jacque from the Climax side, not sure what shape it’s in though.
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I know that road, you can see it from the highway. We will have to get an easement from Climax to use it. I also am curious as to its condition.
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I think you are hitting on something a bit that in terms of the I-70 resorts, Copper and to a lesser extent Winter Park are really the only ones that both have the ability to expand their skiable terrain and support additional skier visits on the mountain and in the town/base.
Breck and Vail have essentially max’d out their village / town’s ability to increase the number of daily skiers during peak periods. Keystone has essentially max’d out its skiable terrain or at least other than some low density high alpine stuff.
A-Basin and Loveland constrained by parking.
With the continuing growth in the Front Range and for destination skiers, Copper and Winter Park are really the only ones that can both support growth in their base areas/villages and skiable terrain.
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I noticed the change of skier ability for a few trails as well. Green runs around Rendezvous are now blue. Black runs around Storm King are now blue. Care Free & Easy Feelin went green to blue to name a few.
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Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure master plans show the difficultly based on the grade of the trails — the actual final rating is done by the ski area.
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yeah they differ from what a resort will publicly advertise, and a lot of green trails across a lot of resorts qualify as “low intermediate”.
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IDK what PBRopeTech will think but it sounds like a lot of relatively new detach lifts getting replaced. Wonder if they would reuse them or sell them, unless maybe they would be destined for scrap. If they get scrapped I will feel really old, only 2 years older than I am
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30 years is a typical lifespan for a detachable, yes one can do major revisions and keep them going but major components have reached their design life and more parts will start to wear out. Major systems ie driveline, electrical, etc. of the lift may have also become obsolete and quite expensive to replace with modern equivalents.
Re-installation of detachable lifts does reduce upfront capital expenditure but surprisingly not by much and you will have still have an old lift with old lift issues once completed. Having talked to many who have done the recent re-installs of detachable lifts they have found them to have much longer teething periods than their new equivalents which tends to give a lift a bad reputation with the public.
I am all for the re-installation of lifts as it is a way for capital strapped resorts to get a project done, and it seems to make sense for fixed grips as the simplicity of the device works in their favor but detachables it’s less of an ideal situation that could saddle a resort with an expensive maintenance hog and for a fairly wealthy operator like Powdr it behoves them to by new lifts.
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Sure, we’ve seen Boyne refurbish old high speed quads from the 1990s and relocate them, but they’re the outlier. Alterra, Powdr, and Vail Resorts are more likely to just scrap such lifts and build brand new ones.
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B and E were built in 1998. They have high hours as they are the first to open in the fall and the last to close in the spring (along with F, of course). In 2028 they’ll be 30; we replaced O-1 at 32, F and 29, and I at 30.
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if that happens it will probably the first HS6 to be scrapped in the country
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six shooter at big sky
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to my knowledge six shooter is not being scrapped and its actually being reused at sugarloaf to replace timberline
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Also guess I am surprised that there aren’t a bunch of smaller ski areas lining up to buy it even with the higher hours. Considering the even older HS4 we have seen re-used I would find it surprising to not see any form of demand.
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As Vons mentioned, there is a lot more going into repurposing a used lift that many smaller areas might not be willing to take on. B, for example, was Poma’s first Omega sixpack, with all the teething problems that entails. It has a control system that was taken from from the old Flyer. It is in many ways an X model, and that will factor into whether another area wants it. It also has worked very well for us, so that might add a positive wrinkle to any potential sale.
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The extended Rendezvous will obviously relieve the American Flyer because one will be able to reach it from American Eagle as well. Combined with Sail Away serving the same sort of purpose for American Eagle that the Freedom SuperChair serves for the Independence SuperChair on the other side of the Ten Mile Range, that’ll plug the two most important gaps in the lift network (providing ways of transiting across from east to west, or west to east, without going through the base areas).
I’d assume Union Meadows will have some actual marked trails cut off of it.
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re: Union Meadows- I would be surprised if we did. There is one marked road through there that serves as a catch line but the appeal to that zone is the free-for-all tree skiing.
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Ideas for the lifts:
1 Super Bee should be a D-line 8 similar to Challenger at Sun Valley
2 Move Super Bee to replace Excelerator
3 Move Excelerator to replace Lumberjack or Blackjack.
4 Move Lumberjack to Thunderbird or replace Mountain Chief.
5 Name the lift by the terrain park Park King.
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From one of my former coworkers, Copper is unlikely to recycle lifts, all new detachables will likely be direct drive, if available, as there are many cost benefits to the technology from energy use, and serviceability.
Mentioned earlier that B and E are high hour lifts and would need extensive refurbishment when they do retire. I could see B getting sold to become a shorter lift at a smaller resort operator but not likely. E is so short that the grips will have experienced very high cycles, if they have not already been replaced.
Lumberjack is likely getting done before B or E are getting replaced.
Honestly I don’t see a need for 4 being a HSQ and with footprint issues at the bottom an upgrade to a FGT or FGQ would move the added traffic and park more butts on the lift than in line or on the limited trail system.
Due to the remote location of Thunderbird I would advise that the lift have a standby and tertiary (evac only) diesel drives in addition to its electric primary, getting a large number of staff to the back of tucker to rope evac would be a nightmare. L also is a flat beginner lift that is 44years old so it would need a major rebuild to be Thunderbird or 6.
yah fine call the new G lift Park King, they’ll change the name every time marketing get new idea, anyway.
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Good to know Thredbo and Perisher aren’t the only ones battling for their country’s highest lifted point
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I really don’t see the point in the Sail Away lift. Eagle already serves the same terrain (with the addition of Fair/Foul Play, Main Vein, and Bouncer) and never has even close to the longest lines on the mountain.
If you’re gonna bother building it, why not extend it upwards to base of Storm King or top of Excelerator? It would both allow access to Resolution/Spaulding/Super Bee pods and make the Lower Enchanted and Cache Glades areas lappable. Only downside would be reduced access to intermediate terrain, but I assume the combination of Ptarmigan being right there and the even shorter Eagle lines would make up for this. Is the need for intermediate terrain really that great that a detach double servicing 2-3 short blues makes sense?
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It would serve as a reliever lift, and shorten the traverse from the back bowls to Aerie
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With the current setup, a skier transitioning from the Flyer to Eagle side of the mountain has to go to the base area to make the transition. With the Sail Away lift, skiers can bypass the base area which will improve circulation.
Also, Sail Away will be great for taking lines off Eagle/Flyer in the early season as it is likely going to be one of the first lifts to open.
Going to the top of Excelerator or bottom of Storm King would likely make the lift exposed to a significant amount of wind and would be pretty expensive. Plus if you are going to the bottom of Storm King there is no intermediate trails off of it.
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Also, with Super Bee having a mid station, you can get off, get to Sail Away and then to the West side of the mountain. I suspect with this change, Super Bee, American Eagle and American Flyer will have equally dispersed crowds in the morning now. Actually with Super Bee being the closest to free parking, it may become the lift of choice for many to start the day.
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From the proposed mid station, you could not access sail away without taking eagle or flyer, and those ways would probably be easier to access west. As for Super Bee, being closer to the free lots, so would the alpine lift (the upgraded alpine would probably be high enough to access sail away though) and the free busses to each village.
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The cutoff to reach Skid Road from Coppertone means that you actually can bypass the American Eagle and just go straight across to the Super Bee pod without having to go through Center Village. But you still have to cross the American Eagle pod and mingle with a lot of cross-traffic.
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Sail Away will solve a problem similar to what Breckenridge built the Freedom SuperChair to solve.
To explain: when the Peak 6 expansion opened in 2013, Breck knew that there’d be traffic that would be traveling directly to the new peak from Peak 8 and points south. To that end, they made sure that those guests could bypass the Independence SuperChair by cutting a crossover trail called the Peak 6 Parkway, allowing visitors to cross over from Pioneer to Wirepatch, then ski down a hill and take another crossover to get over to Lincoln Meadows and the Zendo Chair. But while you could bypass Peak 7’s base heading towards Peak 6, the same was not the case when returning to Peak 8 after you were done lapping the Kensho SuperChair. You had to go back to Peak 7 base, ride the Independence SuperChair, then ski down to Peak 8 base. This made the lower part of Monte Cristo pretty dicey because it was having to carry the traffic of both Peak 7 lappers and egress traffic from Peak 6.
In 2021 (originally planned for 2020 but delayed due to COVID), Breck rectified this by building a high speed quad on Peak 7. The Freedom SuperChair runs from just downhill of Lincoln Meadows up to Pioneer Crossing, and in addition to making it easier to lap the north Peak 7 trails, it most importantly means that you can bypass the Peak 7 base area in both directions when going between Peaks 7 and 8.
Sail Away and the upgraded Rendezvous will combine to fix a similar hole in Copper’s lift network. Sail Away will eliminate the need to travel all the way down to the Center Village base when transiting from the American Flyer side to the American Eagle side, while the extended Rendezvous will be reachable from the Aerie via the existing EZ Road trail, meaning that anyone lapping trails on the eastern side of the mountain will now have a way of getting over to the west side of the mountain without having to go all the way down to the base area then back up on the American Flyer.
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This is so huge! Any thoughts on how Copper will prioritize the work? So much to do.
Of course, I’d love to see Jacques come first. The increased acreage and jaw-dropping pictures and videos will also be fantastic for marketing.
But then, there are so many lifts needing replacement, and the early-season race training business to grow.
Thoughts?
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This is so huge! Any thoughts on how Copper will prioritize the work? So much to do.
Of course, I’d love to see Jacques come first. The increased acreage and jaw-dropping pictures and videos will also be fantastic for marketing.
But then, there are so many lifts needing replacement, and the early-season race training business to grow.
Thoughts?
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When will Copper Mtn (Powder Corp.) replace the Alpine (A), Mountain Chief, and Blackjack lifts? These “60-year old” museum piece lifts are slow and use outdated chairs. Please realign Sierra Lift which has been promised for over 20 years.
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Museum pieces??? the all work perfectly fine in their jobs.
The chair That does need replacing is lumberjack
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