Julie and I spent last week in Copper Mountain, CO. I will omit details of the conference I was attending and instead tell you about the vacation part of the trip (pictures). The summary is that we both went skiing for the first time and had an awesome time.

A photo album of our trip.

Day 1: Arrived at Copper Mountain Resort

We flew from St. Louis to Denver and met up with some friends at the Denver airport. From Denver we drove on I-70, passing through the Eisenhower Tunnel, in a small snow storm to our condo.  We arrived in the Center Village at the resort and started drinking lots of water to avoid dehydration.  Although I did not think so while we were on the highway, I now realize that the fresh snow was a good thing because you ski slower, crashes are less painful, and it is very pretty.

The mountain from the athletic club.

Center Village from our condo balcony.

The base of the American Eagle lift from our condo balcony.

Day 2: Took ski lessons

We woke up early and arrived at the ski school, rented skis, and signed up for lessons. Julie and I had never skied before. I highly recommend taking lessons for your first time. We took no pictures today because we did not want to break our camera with all the falls.

Day 3: Went skiing again

More skiing. We made it off of the Kokomo lift (the easiest) a few times today.

View from Kokomo lift.

Julie on skiis.

Day 4: Took a 2 hour snowmobile trip

We were both pretty sore from skiing and falling so we decided to go snowmobiling (the photo album has video). We took a two hour trip that went almost to the continental divide.

The rear view.

Julie and I at the half-way point of our trip (they should have warned us that our clothes would smell horribly of exhaust if we did not wear the ski suits they provided, yuck).

A snow angel in very deep snow.

Julie warming her hands and feet (did you know snowmobiles have hand and feet warmers?).

Day 5: Went skiing again

The fifth day was a breakthrough day for Julie, she figured out how to ski well enough that it was fun. We were both glad we did not try to snowboard because the beginning snowboarders still looked very frustrated.

“This is fun.”

The view from the Lumberjack lift.

Day 6: Heading back home.

We woke up early (there were workers with axes on the roof breaking icicles) and went for a walk before checking out and heading for our flight.

Dudes on the roof with axes.

A snowy creek that runs through the resort.