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Free Skiing at Copper Mountain Resort in Colorado, USA for the 2011/12 season for Mt Ruapehu Season Pass Holders. Stay 7 or more nights at Copper Mountain Resort in a gold, platinum or silver grade condo to qualify. Number of days skiing will be one less than the number of nights accommodation booked. Offer open to Mt Ruapehu 2011 Season, Five-Season, Life/Life Plus and Ultimate Pass holders. Child must hold a season pass. Book accommodation and pre-reserve passes with Ski Traveller to qualify. Not valid with any other promotion. Conditions apply.

Copper Mountain has announced that this summer they will begin construction on a new chairlift, replacing the High Point fixed grip double chair located at the base of Union Creek, which has served Copper faithfully since 1976.

The new lift will provide improved service to all levels of skiing and riding ability. The lift, manufactured by Doppelmayr USA, will have a new alignment to help improve skier and rider circulation in and out of Union Creek. In conjunction with the new lift, the addition of a new trail connection from the east will make the circulation from the Catalyst Terrain Park and the tremendous beginner and intermediate terrain in the area, much easier.

The new lift will have a capacity of 2,400 people per hour, a length of 4,937 feet, with a vertical rise of 1,005 feet. The ride time will be 5 minutes, a fraction of the current lift ride from Union Creek to mid-mountain now. Copper Mountain would like to recognize the US Forest Service, and specifically the White River National Forest team, for being a great partner throughout this entire process.

We hear you like snow. Well it just so happens that Copper Mountain Resort have received some this year, and by some they mean some record breaking amounts! It’s feeling more like February with a 53″ mid-mountain base and over 2000 open acres. Copper Mountain have now received 149″ inches of the white stuff; nearly 3/5ths of there annual snowfall! This year has been huge and the conditions have been awesome. Copper Mountain are averaging nearly 1 in 4 days as a Snow Day! If you haven’t picked up your Snow Day Pass, now’s the time!

  After skiing NZ for 25 consecutive winters I decided it was time to fufill a life time passion to have a northern hemisphere ski holiday.We are a family of five with two 15 yr olds and one 17 yr old.We belong to a Ruapahue ski club and I had seen some info kicking around the club about ski holidays but everytime I multiplied the cost by five I just about fell over.Last winter I saw a ski holiday featured in the herald travel section.This was run by Lianne Stott at Ski Traveller in Auckland.I began to email Lianne and with the benefit of her advise and experience we decided that our destination would be Copper Mountian in Colorado.  Copper mountian is an area called Summit County that includes the towns of Silverthorne, Dillon, Breckinridge and Frisco.The adjoining ski fields are Breckinridge, Keystone, Araprahoe Basin and Copper Mountian.These are all within a 15-40 minute drive from Frisco.From Frisco is a free bus service that runs between all these towns and ski fields that runs for about 19 hours a day.Brilliant.We never felt the need for a hire car at all and still managed to see a lot of the local area.Vail, reputed to be Americas largest ski field is only 20 minutes down the road from copper mountian but is not included in the Summit County area but easily accessible.  We booked 12 nights at Copper in a two bedroom, two bathroom, pull out sofa bed, fully equiped kitchen condo that was about 2-3 minutes walk to the chair lift.Copper village was very quaint, spotlessly clean, zero litter,comes with all the restaurants, shops, hot tubs, lap pool, skating rink, medical center and hire shops.For a family ski holiday this was fantastic.The ski field was supurb with great variety of beutifully groomed to challenging moguled steeps.The facilities on field were excellent.Copper had a deal Mt Ruapehue where we were able to ski on our 2009 seasons pass.This made to holiday way more affordable than I thought possible.  Liannes booking and airport advise was right on the button.Also her advise on comprehensive travel insurace was invaluble.Dont skimp on insurance.We had a great time, really loved it, and I cant wait to plan the next one.  Go Ski TravellerMark.

Ski NZ in the 2009 season and then use your season pass to get free or half price skiing in the Northern Hemisphere in 2010.  Ski Traveller has put together a comprehensive list, we can get you to all these ski resorts.

2009 Mt Ruapehu Season or Life Pass
* ski free at Winter Park - USA
* ski free at Copper Mountain - USA
* ski half price at Kicking Horse - Canada 

2009 Cardrona - Full Season Pass
2009 Treble Cone - Unlimited Season Pass
2009 nzski.com Queenstown Season Pass: Coronet Peak/Remarkables Season Pass
2009 nzski.com NZskipass Season Pass: Coronet Peaks/Remarkables/Mt Hutt
* ski half price at Banff, Lake Louise, Sunshine Village - Canada
* ski half price at Val Gardena - Italy
* ski half price at Saas Fee - Switzerland
* ski half price at Bariloche - Argentina

The New Zealand ski season is coming up fast.  You can still buy your Earlybird 2009 Mt Ruapehu Season Passes.  The deadline has been extended to 4pm on the Monday the 4th of May. 

Click here to buy your Earlybird Mt Ruapehu Season Pass:
http://www.mtruapehu.com/winter/Season-passes/

2009 Earlybird Mt Ruapehu Season Pass is NZ$ 385 per adult.

2009 Season Pass Holders get the following ski deals in Canada & the USA:
* 50% off lift tickets at Kicking Horse Mountain in Canada
* Free Skiing at Copper Mountain
* Free Skiing at Winter Park

For more information on these deals go to: www.skitraveller.co.nz/hot_deals
Ring Ski Traveller 0800 11 22 99.

Copper Mountain is offering free skiing for all 2009 Mt Ruapehu Season, Life, Life Plus & Ultimate pass holders.

• Valid for dates: 4 January - 13 February 2010
• Pre-book 7 nights or more, with Ski Traveller, to qualify for your free skiing.
• You must stay at Copper Mountain managed properties, choose from Silver, Gold or Platitnum graded accommodation.
• Your free lift pass will be valid for one day less than the number of nights you stay at Copper.  Example: stay 10 nights and your lift pass is valid for 9 days.

Hi Lianne - just a quick email to let you know we had a great time at Copper - so thanks very much for all your help.  The snow and mountain facilites realy worked well for our family, the apartment was flash - oh, and we were lucky enough to get an upgrade on the flight to San Fran - so slept lying down - fantastic! 
Cheers, Jenny P

Here is a rare event me on a snowboard!    I usually try snowboarding once every other year and only when the snow is nice and soft.   I have decided to actually  learn the sport this season and on Monday December 1^st  conditions were perfect  at Copper,  the snow was  soft (mid-February condition)  everywhere on the mountain and surprisingly I only had a few  hard falls and could still get out of bed on Tuesday morning. 

Roger Markel
Director of International Sales & Emerging Markets