Copper Mountain

I'd been watching the snow pile up on the Banner Summit SNOTEL site for the last couple of weeks, and after Friday's 8" dump I was ready to give it a go.  Tamara and I met up with John, in Banks, and negotiated the elk filled roads to Banner Summit.

It was a little after 9AM when we pulled into the un-plowed wide spot on Highway 21 and started to unload.  After carefully stashing a couple of special post ski beers in the snow between the car and 7 foot wall of snow that marked the road edge, we were off!

Beautiful morning!

Luckily, someone had put in a skin track on Saturday, so we didn't have to break trail.  There was an inch or two of fresh snow from Saturday on top of the 8" from Friday.  It was about 10 degrees, the sun was out, and there wasn't any wind. It was looking good!

Tamara cruising up

This section was begging to be skied

As we progressed up, we made a few stops to strip layers, drink and chat.  Before we knew it, the summit was in sight.

John nearing the summit

Tamara on top (J. Platt photo)

Summit Splattski sans Splattski

The top couple hundred feet was a bit wind affected, but once we got past this section it was silky smooth!  So silky smooth that we ended up doing three laps!

All I could think about as we skied up the road to the car was the stashed beer.  Unfortunately, the snow plow had pushed up a 4 foot mountain of snow between the car and snow wall removing my footprints that led to the beer.  Oh, well, no worries.  We'll just use our shovels and dig it out.  Fifteen minutes later, we had moved the mountain of snow around, but could not locate the beer.  Dang!  Next time I'll bring a cooler.

 Splattski's Trip Report