Hello! 

Heading to Winter Park next week and want to do one day of traveling to another close ski area on the ikon pass. We originally settled on Copper but a friend also recommended A-Basin. Wondering which is better for snowboarding? We're intermediate riders but enjoy focusing on hitting side jumps and small feature terrain parks rather than speed. Anything too steep, we find it not as enjoyable and having to snowplow down. Any recommendations would be great!

Copper has far more intermediate terrain and it's well known for parks, so that's what I'd recommend.  However, A-Basin is extremely scenic and a smaller, interesting contrast to the larger resorts of Winter Park and Copper.  There is enough intermediate terrain for a fun day at A-Basin for an intermediate skier/boarder, but probably not two.  There is a lot of expert terrain there.  Lunch on a clear day at A-Basin's mid-mtn Black Mountain Lodge is about as scenic as it gets in American skiing.

PS:  I'll likely be skiing all three myself next week:-)

I'll second that.  Can you really go wrong at either place?  But, Copper is bigger, and if there's something you're looking for it's probably more likely to have it.

meredithb_14 wrote:

Hello! 

Heading to Winter Park next week and want to do one day of traveling to another close ski area on the ikon pass. We originally settled on Copper but a friend also recommended A-Basin. Wondering which is better for snowboarding? We're intermediate riders but enjoy focusing on hitting side jumps and small feature terrain parks rather than speed. Anything too steep, we find it not as enjoyable and having to snowplow down. Any recommendations would be great!

AWD should be fine. Of the three, Copper is the easiest to get to, A-Basin the hardest.  There's only one little section over the mountain to Winter Park that isn't a well plowed interstate.  Copper is right off the interstate.

meredithb_14 wrote:

Thank you! This is helpful and sounds like Copper is the best option for us. A bit worried about the drive from Winter Park to Copper (and honestly Denver Airport to Winter Park). We won't have tire chains but we will have an SUV with AWD. Any experience with this? 

meredithb_14 wrote:

Thank you! This is helpful and sounds like Copper is the best option for us. A bit worried about the drive from Winter Park to Copper (and honestly Denver Airport to Winter Park). We won't have tire chains but we will have an SUV with AWD. Any experience with this? 

 You should be fine with AWD for Winter Park and Copper.  Just take is slow but not too slow going up the road at the big curve when going to Winter Park, assuming there is snow on the road.  They do a good job keeping up with snowstorms.  What's more important is that timing of when you drive on I-70.

I know of a family who have been driving from Winter Park to various other resorts in Colorado because their kids are in assorted competitions.  They have an AWD SUV and have been doing fine.

I agree that Copper is a better fit for your family than ABasin.  Note that the layout of Copper means that the easier trails are fairly separate from the advanced terrain.

For parking, there is a large lot on the left after you enter the main entrance to the resort.  That should be free.  There are big buses that provide shuttle service fairly often.  If you boot up at the car, then can take the bus over to the far base where the green trails are located and then return from somewhere in the middle of the resort.

 We went to WP last March and drove there from Denver.  It didn't stop snowing until like our third day there. Our rented Jeep did just fine - zero issues.

meredithb_14 wrote:

Thank you! This is helpful and sounds like Copper is the best option for us. A bit worried about the drive from Winter Park to Copper (and honestly Denver Airport to Winter Park). We won't have tire chains but we will have an SUV with AWD. Any experience with this?