For those not familiar with the area I included below a map of the Banner summit area. Banner summit is reached by driving from Lowman to Stanley. This area has MANY other peaks with great skiing besides the popular Copper mountain, such as Bull trout point and Cape Horn mountain among others sub-peaks. The map shows the most popular climbing route to Copper Mountain, and another favorite of mine "Peak 92".
There is enough snow at Copper to sustain skiing the South and West faces for another 2-3 weeks. There were some thin spots near the top of Copper south face due to wind scouring, but there is full snow coverage all the way down to the road via the Newman Creek (South). The north and east faces at the 8-9,000 feet still have a winter snowpack. In fact, they were covered by a 6-8 cm layer of creamy soft snow from last weeks storm front. Below the view of Copper ridge to the NE. Peak 92 is the 4th sub-summit. To the center in the background the Sawtooths are visible.
Be prudent with Copper summit cornices. Yesterday the cornices were softening up considerably and did not inspire confidence. And after watching a small overhang cornice break-up on the eastermost chute I got the message. Too Bad!, the north chute shots were very tempting, and the pair of tracks left on the middle chute by a party of two 1-2 days ago did not help. I will have to wait a little longer.
The next video was filmed on the Copper's south 32 degrees south face. As you will see, the corn was very NICE!
At the end of the day, as we were skiing out, we found a digital Pentax camera. the camera has pictures of Copper for a party of four. And the pictures appear to be taken several weeks ago when there was still snow on the trees. There was also a picture of two dogs in a living room. Below the LAST picture snapped by the camera from the summit of Copper with three skiers.
Please contact me if you are the are or know the owner of the lost camera.
Chago
