Posted for Nancy Yearout
RE/MAX Properties of the Summit, Breckenridge, Colorado
nyearout@colorado.net
http://www.realestate-breckenridge.net
#Breckenridge, Colorado
Copper, silver, gold, charcoal, timber, sheep and, finally, snow have all at one
time been products of Copper Mountain, from the early 1800s up to the present
day. This weekend, the Copper Mountain ski area, which opened in 1972,
celebrates its 40th anniversary. While much has changed since those early years,
the memories of those who experienced them have not, presenting us with a rich
view of a history that stretches over four decades.
Pre ski
It was
an unknown miner who gave Copper its name, disappointed after digging a
mineshaft into the peak and only turning up low-grade copper ore. Gold and
silver were mined from around copper through the 1880s, alongside which cropped
up the town of Wheeler and a railroad station.
While eventually ski areas
like Vail, Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin became established and started
drawing skiers into the mountains, Copper remained silent. Although a few had
noted it favorably, it wasn't until the U.S. Forest Service mentioned the
mountain in a 1969 report that people began to recognize its true potential.
“If ever there was a mountain that had terrain created for skiing, it
would be Copper Mountain,” the report stated and many believed it.
The
beginning
Just as the birth of any great endeavor, Copper's wasn't easy.
A reluctant private landowner and a need of large amounts of funding during a
shaky economic period were just a few of the challenges facing the ski area's
inception.
A group of about 16 initial investors gathered to organize
the purchase of the 280 acres of private land in the valley and then raise the
rest of the funds necessary to build up the ski area itself. The group was led
by Chuck Froelicher, who in turn brought in Charles D. “Chuck” Lewis, a man
whose name would become almost synonymous with Copper.
Lewis already had
experience in the ski business, having served as general manager and later vice
president and treasurer at Vail Mountain. He is described as an accomplished
skier and avid outdoorsman, whose passion for skiing and the mountain shone
through in everything he did.
Hoping to hold the grand opening in 1971,
Lewis traveled back and forth across the country seeking funding. For a long
while he was unsuccessful and it wasn't until June of 1971 that he finally
reached his goal.
Copper Mountain opened for the 1972-73 season with
around 20 trails and five lifts. Now, the ski area boasts 126 trails and 22
lifts, with 2,465 acres of terrain.
Passion passed around
Nearly
every story about Copper's early years seems to involve Lewis in some way, and
many afterwards as well. Former employees praise his skiing skill and passion
almost as much as his friendly personality.
“He was something,” said Bob
Winsett, who started working at Copper in 1973. “He'd go out and tell the lift
operators to take a break and bump chairs for a while. He was that kind of guy.
There was nothing elite about him, nothing about him that wanted to be separate
from the employees. He was one of the best bosses you could ever
have.”
Lewis was in his mid 30s when Copper started and could often be
found on the mountain, working, chatting with employees or spending time with
his family — wife Penny and three young children.
“He was a great guy,”
Chuck “CJ” Julin, Copper's 116th employee, recalled. “He had a passion for
skiing; he really loved to ski, so as a founder and as someone who runs a resort
or is responsible for it, his love and passion filtered down to the
employees.”
The employees loved him not only for his passion but for the
opportunities he gave them to be a part of Copper. According to former Copper
employee and current general manager of Eldora Mountain Resort Jim Spenst, many
of the new hires were young and eager to join the ski industry.
“When he
started Copper, he allowed a lot of us that were young to do things,” Spenst
said. “A lot of other ski areas were already entrenched — they had their
mountain managers, they had their head cat drivers, they had their head lift
guys. ... Chuck was willing to let us younger guys, I was 19 years old when I
went to work at Copper, loading lifts, driving cats, helping work on trails, ski
patrolling, busing tables, doing whatever needed to be done, it was a real
family kind of atmosphere.”
As a result of that trust, Lewis was able to
get his crew to do “just about anything,” Spenst said. One example is the 1976
U.S. Nationals. When lack of snow drove the event out of Heavenly at Utah, Lewis
decided that Copper would step up, which it did, preparing in just two
weeks.
“He gathered a bunch of us together and said this is what we're
going to do and we're going to get it done,” Spenst remembered. And they did.
Spenst also credits Lewis for many of the tricks and methods that he's used
during his ski industry career.
The spirit of the mountain
Lewis
cared very much about the community among his employees, working to make sure
that they felt supported, by the resort and each other. Many of the former Ski
Patrol members still speak fondly of the tight-knit group that formed.
“It was a whole lot of fun, back in those days,” said Chuck Tolton, who
worked at Copper for 35 years as a ski patrolman.
“When I was patrolling,
there were probably less than 25 of us,” Winsett said. “It was a privilege to
work for Chuck Lewis at Copper in any capacity, but it was definitely a
privilege to be on that Ski Patrol with the people that were there, because they
were all super qualified mountaineers and skiers. ... Back in those days,
everybody was there because they wanted to be there.”
Not only did the
employees work together all day, but they often spent their free time together
as well. Many of them lived in condominiums right in the village, Spenst
recalled.
“A lot of us ended up marrying those that we worked with and
having kids,” he said.
He was one of them. Though he had known her
before, his future wife worked at various positions in the resort and her sister
was one of the first woman snow cat operators in Colorado.
Although now
Copper employs many more people, that doesn't mean there still isn't a sense of
camaraderie to be found.
“Yes, there's been an extraordinary amount of
change, but the essence of the sport, the simple enjoyment of being outside, for
ski area workers, I think, is largely the same,” Tolton said. “Why else would
you do it if you really didn't enjoy yourself and the people that you're out
there working with?”
While 40 years may seem like a lot, time can be
tricky, particularly when it comes to memory.
“It seems like it was just
yesterday,” Julin said. “It did go by very fast. I think it's great to celebrate
it, because it is a chance for all of us to celebrate our opportunity to meet
Chuck and be a part of his dream, but also to re-connect with people that we
haven't seen for many years. (That) was a big part of it, because we all had a
chance to stand at that threshold of a frontier, the frontier which is now the
modern ski industry, and we shared that together.”
He added, “Chuck
Lewis, he's there — his spirit's there, his heart's there, so those things just
continue on.”
Courtesy of the Summit Daily News.
