[Originally published at OpenSnow.com, April 3, 2019]
Not long after I moved to Colorado in 2006, I began writing for SKI and SKIING magazines, both based in Boulder, where I live. An awesome perk that came with the job was complimentary lift tickets to most Colorado resorts. For a newbie to the state this was optimal, as I wasn’t ready to purchase a pass until I sampled slopes everywhere. On big powder days, my storm-chasing shenanigans often had me blazing down Interstate 70 in my SUV, past Copper Mountain and toward the more renowned resorts (I won’t name names) farther west. Back then, Copper didn’t have much cachet; nobody I knew raved about it, which I construed as “not worth bothering with.”