16 inches and 70mph winds on top...

More of the same riding wise today. The wind kept the second chair from opening until 1 pm which made for longer lift line at american flyer lift a bit slower. That crowd was gone by 10:30 and the lap speed came right back up. The snow was bumped but soft soft soft. 50% of the pro-am group is has a flip variation-all day long. Halfpipe rookie Kevin Mattice is going is big as anyone and adding a trick every run. Haffner mctwists. Perle lands ten alley-oop back rodeos. You can not tell Emily P is riding switch in the bumps. Scotty J is claiming young female pipe rippers in the dev posse....These are obviously just a few and random sample of the hightlights.
On the practical information side of things for those of you at home. Again today there were no injuries. We did have a young rider awaken to some symptoms of altitude sickness. It was a tough headache, sore throat and dryheaves. Bummer yes but the doctor here at the clinic will not call it "Altitude sickness" without a noticeably high heart/pulse rate. He administered some o2 and prescribed an in-room tank. The child is feeling fine and riding tomorrow unless things turn around. That is the procedure for these symptoms. The fix is easy and there is no need for extra worry if it comes up again. By the way you would already know if it is your son or daughter. The breck crew is likely taking tomorrow and the copper crew will ride two more days and then break.

Day one of Copper Camp

It was a long night of checking in following three months of dryland training, a long day of driving flying and driving again in snow but we made it. We straightened out some faulty room keys and went back for the keys we didn't get the first time but the underclassmen ate by 8:00 pm here at copper and the upperclassmen found their new home for a month in Breckenridge. We are finally on snow and it's still snowing out there. Conditions have been pretty dry here lately but the snowmakers and groomers have built a great halfpipe and it has been snowing since yesterday aftenoon.
The snowtotal of seven inches this morning matched the last months total and made for a fun day of warming up and checking out our gear. More than one local has thanked me today for bringing the snow. Some riders were charging along like midseason as a result of long summers and recent days at home. Others like me need to build slowly. Each training group pretty much had the same fun and easy warm up plan for day one. Slash around, do some switch riding try out some boxes.
I slammed one pretty good, Alex Bayer dinged up a new board pretty well. Cam Howe greased a frontside boardslide through the flat-down-flat box and James Haffner did a frontside rodeo 540 out of the bottom of the snowy halfpipe.
Beside the snow in the pipe the shape is great and when the snow eases up we will have the training we count on here. In the meantime the fluffy snow is a great way to have fun getting our legs and minds snowboarding again. Everyone is healthy in the altitude and getting their rest right now. Tomorrow we will will have more highlights and the progression will surely expand and deepen.