I had been to Copper Mountain before, and it is one of my favorite ski resorts. However, this trip was different. It was my first solo trip, driving in from Wayzata, MN.

Ski hard, relax, eat well, and repeat the next three days.

My ski passes allowed me to hit the slopes early, and I was fortunate enough to make first tracks just about every day. A full morning of skiing ended each day with an excellent bowl of green chili at JJ's Rocky Mountain Tavern. The afternoons involved non-stop skiing until the legs guided me to Endo's Adrenaline Cafe for the Apres Ski.

The Center Village location is ideal because everything is right there. I could walk to the lifts, walk to restaurants, and I even took a local free shuttle to Frisco one night to check out Ollie's Pub & Grub. I highly recommend the Dam Brewery in Dillon as well.

The highlight of the trip was almost hitting 40,000 vertical feet on my last day. The prior day vertical total was actually in meters, so the four day total of 136,000 feet was not bad either.

The only negative was that the days flew by so fast, and all of a sudden I was packing Friday morning for the drive home. However, I will be back!