Ski Cooper

Last year we skied Keystone. Don’t get me wrong, Keystone was awesome; but, Cooper is my new favorite. Parking is a breeze. The prices are very competitive. The staff is super friendly. The prices are nice and low. The kids program is top notch. Our daughter loved her instructors and was anxious to practice everything they taught her. Helmut is an excellent instructor. He helped me with a bad habit I developed. The next day I was skiing down the blues with half the energy I was using before and getting compliments on my form.

Honestly, DO NOT BOTHER COMING HERE ON AN EVENT DAY YOU WILL NOT GET YOUR MONEYS WORTH!
They where nice and called to apologize but sorry does not make up for ruining my day! And it was not the first time. Yeah they where SORRY but still can’t get over the BULLSHIT here and how they manage the mountain! How they let over a 100 kid racers tear up all the fresh powder 45min before paying customers! Yeah no NO I can’t get over it!!!
Honestly the more I think about my experience here and what more than half their employees are saying. That the new person running the place is terrible most employees don’t even like working there anymore!!!

Ski Cooper is a really cool little mountain. It has a laid back kinda vibe comparable to A-​Basin, but it’s a lot less crowded and the lift tickets are half as expensive. Of course, the trade off to this is the fact that there is not much vertical incline. Picture an East Coast sized mountain but with Colorado snow.
The runs are fairly short, the lifts are very slow. They don’t make any snow (au natural, baby), and consequently, don’t have a terrain park either. Despite this, it’s a fun place to come. It’s definitely ideal for people who are just learning to ski– why spend $ 100 to go down a bunny hill at Copper, when you can spend $ 45 to go down a bunny hill at Cooper? Even if you are an experienced skier, it’s still worth a trip if the conditions are good and you’re in the area. It’s totally worth the price of a lift ticket for a crow-​free day of cruisin around. And, we had one of the best powder days I’ve had in years here!

An affordable ski resort that Colorado seems to have less of with every passing year. A delightful mountain with plenty of runs for beginner and intermediate skiers. However, it lacks variety and the lifts are fairly slow. Overall, a splendid place to ski.

If you are looking for a GREAT place to ski with all the locals, head over to this place! If you are looking for a GREAT deal on a ski lift ticket and you are an out-​of-​towner, go on Tuesday or Thursday!
Seriously, this place is surrounded by breathtaking slopes, great skiers, and plenty of locals! They rent equipment, you can buy tickets just as a walk-​in without a long line to wait in, and you can ski for 6 hours – virtually uninterrupted!
They offer all levels of skiing and snowboarding and keep the slopes well-​groomed. They offer ski classes a couple times a day OR you can do like I did and listen and watch their instruction with others and mimic what you see and hear! They also offer rental equipment and a lounge/​lunch area with indoor and outdoor seating.
This resort is great for children and beginner skiers/​snowboarders. Their instructors are very personable and patient! Just watching them coach the various classes was encouraging to me!
The necessary/​locker room was extremely well-​kempt and clean. You could rent a locker for your personal items, but as others have suggested, if you get there early enough, you can park and practically ski right to the door of your vehicle! I chose option B here and was able to have a picnic lunch in the hatch of my rental vehicle, which I brought with me. WIN-​WIN!
I will definitely be returning to Ski Cooper. I loved the resort and all of the nice staff. And for a ski day around $ 100 for 2, I’d say I got a pretty SWEET deal!

I had so much fun at cooper. This rating is entirely for the quality of snow, some of the best i have ever seen. It was fresh powder amazingness, really dry and light snow.
As one of the ski patrolers put it the mountain is all green no matter what its marked. I didnt mind because apparently not going for 3 years makes cruising greens really ideal.
They have an irish pub, rentals, and rates are less expensive then corporate places.

This is a great mountian for beginners and intermediate skiers. It is a cute little place. The mountian is mostly flat and there are only a few step runs. Also I find the ski patrol to be very disturbing. I left my skis out because I did not know that you had to rack them. So the ski patrol took my skis and separated them so I could not find them and put the bases touching the rack witch ruins the ski. But besides that this place is awesome.

Cold! Coldest major ski resort in the rockies.
Lots of powder! A winter storm dumped 2 feet of snow. The mountain doesn’t have and double blacks but the powder made up for it. Slow ski chair system but worth the wait.
What made this a 5 star review was Sean who works in the rental shop. Came in with a board from another shop, had loose bindings and asked to use some tools to fix it. Turned out the binding just sucked so returned the board and came back the next day to rent from Cooper. Much better boards with better service and Sean really hooked me up with something for the deep powder. Thanks again.

I almost don’t want to write about this resort as it is a hidden gem. We skied here in January 2014 and had a great time. The town is an awesome little ski town and the mountain is awesome. I told my wife that this is a place that god loves it to snow. Every day fresh thick powder. Wide open runs and some nice trails. If you want to have the great Colorado skiing without tons of humans, go here.
I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

If you are looking for good skiing at a smaller resort with not a lot of people, Ski Cooper is your place.
Located in Leadville, CO it is a day skiing only resort. You can get lessons, rentals, lunch, and a reasonable all over lift ticket.
My husband had never skied before in his life so instead of giving him a lesson where there would be a million other people around, we headed here on our first day of our ski trip. Our lesson was semi-​private, meaning the two of us took it together (me for a refresher, hubby for a first timer) and Wayne did a great job introducing my husband to the sport. We were up on the green slopes in no time.
Lunch at a resort can be pricey, and this was no different, but they have a good selection and a great area to sit and view the other skiers as you fuel up.
Their trails range from easy green to hard black and there is something for everyone when at Ski Cooper. Be sure to ride the Magic Carpet at least once so when people reference it, you will know what they are talking about.
This is also the home of the 10^th Mountain Division, dating back to WWII.
There’s something for everyone at Ski Cooper… can’t wait to go back!

Thanks Leo, for helping my timid boy learn to ski! He loves it now!
Great people run this place! The prices are good, there is cross country, tubing, Nordic bike races. A nice place to go especially with kids.

My bf, friend and I went here for 2 days. My friend has been there before and told us we should go again since it was less crowded and cheaper than the other big resorts in the area.
We went on a Wednesday and a Thursday. Wednesday was very quite, no lines at the rental. Thursday was a bit of a mad house, apparently they were a bit under staffed due to some issues that came up and the rental line was super long.
I started off snowboarding. I had never been but figured it was easy. I tried my luck on the bunny hill first and spent 20 mins falling down the hill. I then took 2 hours of lessons with my bf, 5 others and our instructor. He taught us a bunch of good stuff but I was still terrible. After the lessons were over I tried my luck at the bunny hill a few more times but it literally took me over 20 mins each time to get down it. I fell so much and was in a lot of pain.
I had put my snowboard was using on reserve for the next day so I didn’t have to go thru the rental process. I think this part of the resort is a really great option. You don’t have to wait in line again. I had put it on reserve before I realized that I was completely terrible at it.
For Thursday I went there assuming that I would just switch to skis since I knew how to do that. But when I got there the rental line was ridiculous. So I attempted my fate at snowboarding once more. And shockingly I was still terrible. So I stood in line to switch to skis (they let me do this with no problem and no extra charge). The line was really long and once people in front of me knew what I was doing, I was able to go to the middle of the line. I was in like for over an hour though (hence the reason reserving your rental equipment is a good idea). I did eventually get my ski gear and tried out the bunny hill again.
I was amazing at the bunny hill on skis, or at least to my standards I was. So I went with my friend down one of the green hills. It was a success.
I will be going back, just not trying snowboarding and I will make sure to have the right gear on reserve so I don’t have to wait in long lines again.
I had changed my gear so often that they knew my name, I originally returned some defective snowboard boots, then I changed my snowboard to goofy footed (thinking that was why I was bad), then I changed to skis so they were quite familiar with me :)

Great beginners and families with small kids. Has only a couple of small lifts. Grooms are wide and with lots of trees and the views are incredible. You can almost ski to your car and depending on where you park you can. Staff was friendly and looked clean inside and out. Really layed back atmosphere on and off the slopes.
My first experience consist of the Resort losing power for the first time ever and a 15 minute wait on the lift. Then they had to give us a coupon to come back so then i had to go back. Unfortunately it was after the heat wave and slopes were icy and it wasn’t as great as i know it could have been. That being said I’m definitely going back next season with my family.

We visited Ski Cooper recently, and it was the perfect resort for us to go to. Small, uncrowded (not a single wait at the lifts) and personal attention are the hallmarks of this resort just north of Leadville. We have two small children, and their ski instructor was fantastic. He really related well to the kids, and they enjoyed their first time on skis. There is a good mix of runs, from straight forward green runs to challenging black ones. To top it off, the cost is reasonable, and it really delivers good entertainment value for your dollar. We will be coming back!

Out of the way, never crowded, perfectly priced, small mountain atmosphere, tailgate BBQ types, and decent skiing. Just starting out with a family of little ones? This is your resort. Want a back country adventure without the helicopter? Try the snowcat tour! Not a favorite, but worth at least a visit.

Cooper Mountain has got to be one of my favorite places to ski in Colorado! Cooper is set away from the tourist clogged I-​70 resorts (not that any of those are bad, they’re just tourist clogged…). It literally costs HALF the price as the bigger resorts and benefits from an equal half the crowds! I’m also pretty sure it cost me a whopping $ 12 to rent ALL the equipment!
There are a couple drawbacks about Cooper though. It is a much smaller (though no less STEEPER) mountain in terms of trails, so by the end of the day you’ll be kinda bored with what they’ve got. For the price though, I’m not complaining. Especially since they have trails for every difficulty level (I skied my first black diamonds here!!) The other disadvantage, which actually leads TO the advantages, is the location. It’s kinda far from the highway so for a quick day trip it kinda sucks. We have a place in nearby Leadville so we normally just stay up there as well. But again, thanks to the remoteness of the mountain, the crowds are few and you never have to wait too long for the ski lift!

Very nice small ski area in CO, perfect for beginners and families. Has snowcat skiing for advanced which looks very good. Best feature: it’s $ 30 lift ticket (if bought at grocery store) and zero crowds. This is also the home of the 10^th mountain division which in itself is pretty cool.

Alright, so Ski Cooper is about a two and half hour drive from C Springs, which is perhaps why I’ve been here so many times. From Denver it is longer, which means you probably should hit the one of the bigger mountains.
The appeals of Ski Cooper are mainly based around the fact that it is smallish and off by itself, which means it is cheaper than the other ski areas and is generally fairly empty.
This is more of a beginners mountain, which nonetheless I have found memories of.
This place is especially good for the kiddoes, so that’s a plus.
If you aren’t a hardcore skier or snowboarder and are looking for an easy day, then Ski Cooper is for you. If not, try Copper, Monarch, or if you have some green to spend, Vail.