Copper Mountain

Lew called me from Sun Valley... Copper tomorrow? The weather didn't look all that great, so instead of trying to talk him into a new summit I went along. We know Copper really well, so there would be no navigational stress if we were caught in a storm.... a gentlemanly outing.

So I drove up from Boise and Lew from Stanely, where he had overnighted in a friend's cabin. When I arrived at 9:55 at the parking lot for our 10am meeting, I had to wait to make my left turn because a car was approaching... and it was Lew. We had arrived at the exact same time.

Not only that, but it was cloudless and warmer than expected.

We made good time mushing the 2k to the summit. There were a few clouds rolling in and it was quite warm. Here we've dressed up a bit to deal with the wind.

The first couple hundred feet were a little strange, but Lew gave me a couple pointers and things skied really well. Here Lew demonstrates.

And I bust some dinner plates.

The snow was a bit of everything. There was fresh graupel that was melting in the sun, on top of a variably-supportive crust with changeable snow underneath with an occasional hard layer, and it all went different if you got near the trees with some powder in the shade.

Did I mention the snow as a bit of everything?

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