Snowboarders, Skiers Still Doing Tricks On Snow At Copper
COPPER MOUNTAIN, Colo. (CBS4) - It may have reached the 90s on Tuesday in Denver, but there are still some places in Colorado where people are enjoying the snow.
When the ski season officially ends in the spring, a new kind of work begins at Copper Mountain. Employees pile up snow in hopes of having it last through the summer months.
The effort is done so young people who attend a special summer camp at the Copper can still do some ski and snowboard tricks on snow.
"Most people are very surprised there is snow in the summer to even work on," said Phoebe Mills, who heads the Woodward at Copper program. The program teaches the participants the vital skills to succeed in action sports.
The small snowy patch amid what is otherwise green, grassy runs on the mountainside is actually few hundred yards long. There are jumps and rails galore, and plenty of flips and 360s being performed by the campers.
The snow session ends in the morning, but the learning continues inside Woodward's recently renovated barn.
"We're able with our indoor facility -- the foam pits, the spring floor, the trampolines -- to break skills down to easily definable steps," Mills said. "We're doing front flips and back flips inside in a soft environment before we take them to snow. So that way we're allowing kids to get a lot of repetition and muscle memory and skill before they take it onto the snow."
Nico Nakamura, one of the camp participants, told CBS4 that his friends didn't believe him when he said the other day that he was going snowboarding.
"They're like, 'How is that even possible?' And you have to explain to them 'Oh, they push all the snow in the run into the middle and it lasts all summer.' Snowboarders will do anything to snowboard."
CBS4 interviewed one 7-year-old at the camp who is already learning some impressive tricks at a very early age. Asher, a Winter Park resident, said he did four 360s on the snow on Tuesday morning.
"I'm learning how to ski better," he said.
LINK: woodwardatcopper.com
