Day 4 ~ 260km
Our fourth day was spent on the slopes at Copper Moutain in glorious weather. We went there with Sabina’s husband and his dad (I’m ashamed of it but I forgot both their names). We met at Dinosaur Ridge National Natural Landmark where we left our Mazda and switched to their Ford F150 extended cab. A nice truck but lacking some space on the rear seats 
Copper Mt. itself is one of the bigger resorts in Colorado and can be compared to places like Nassfeld in Austria if you just consider the size of it.
It’s got a nice terrain park and a number of freeride options if you’re lucky, unlike us, and get there after a decent snow storm. Unfortunately we were met with nothing but bumps and lots of them. I should mention that I hate ungroomed terrain. Either it’s powder or groomed and nothing in between. People in Colorado however, prefer their runs as bumpy as possible. A snowcat operator doesn’t have to work hard over there.
It’s hard to compare such resorts with anything in Europe since any black diamond run is ungroomed, without exception, so you can’t really enjoy it. You go down and hope that your kidneys stay in place. The blue runs (marked red in Europe) are quite similar though.
Most of the off piste areas were closed due to lack of snow so the only fun thing for us to do was the terrain park which is quite decent I have say.
Day 5 ~ 200km
In the evening of day 4 Miro, Mark (cousins) and the two of us drove to Vail in an old Ford F350 XT. in other words, one big &$@ß of a truck … It’s got a whopping big 8 litre engine but all that power just doesn’t seem to come through. The one major let down was the steering though. You have to turn the steering wheel almost a full circle before you actually notice the thing turning. I almost crashed into a wall while trying to get off I 25 and onto I 76 west. I turned the wheel and nothing happened In a regular car you hardly move the wheel and it will turn instantly, at least compared to this big beast. Eventually I got used to the massive size, relative slow acceleration and totally unresponsive steering and got us to Idaho Springs where I changed places with my brother who was driving behind us in the Mazda.
When we eventually got to Vail we spent over an hour looking for our appartment building where we were staying. Miro got the appartment for a week from his boss since it’s usually empty. I’m certainly not complaining , we got to stay in Vail for two nights for free. 
Vail village has some weird desire to resemble a tirolean village. It reminded me of St. Anton but in that environment it just looks weird. Restaurants, shops and almost everything else has a german name for some reason…
We were lucky and got cheap tickets through a charity organisation. They gave us a day ticket and some other stuff in return for 50$ we donated to someone (I forgot who they were representing) and those 50$ were something like half the regular price.
Vail ski resort is supposed to be one of (if not the) biggest in the US. Unfortunately the weather throughout the day was very mixed. From a snowstorm with 20cm of fresh powder in the morning to heavy cloud cover on the upper part of the mountain and sunshine at the bottom. We didn’t get a chance to see or ski through it all. Mostly due to the weather and because neither of the other two are great skiers otherwise it wouldn’ be a problem.
I enjoyed the groomed trails and especially the powder in the morning but later on the same old story emerged. Bumps and nothing but bumps. At least the terrain park was decent.
Day 6 ~ 800km (Vail – Moab – Provo)
We got up early, left Miro and Mark to drive back home to Denver, then took off heading west on I 70 towards Moab & Arches National Park in Utah. It was quite a drive along the Colorado River, through Glenwood Canyon, out of the Rocky Mt. range into the land of mesas and deserts. We had a short pause at some shopping mall in Grand Junction where we had lunch (chocolate muffins, bananas and stuff)
then continued west into Utah.
We figured we’d take a shortcut to Moab (a road that barely appears on the map) and it turned out to be the best possible choice we could’ve made.
Highway 128 that, after a few ghost towns, turns into a scenic by-way along the Colorado and into the magnificent canyons southeast of Arches NP. No wonder so many movies were shot in this area. It’s stunning.
At Moab (the outdoor adventure capital of southwest) we stopped for some info at the Visitors Center. I came out with more than I could carry Everything, on everything that’s available in the area but eventually we decided to stick with the original idea and see Arches National Park. It was getting late and I didn’t want to miss the light.
Arches NP
We stopped at a couple of scenic lookouts with faboulus views around the park but our objective was the famous Delicate Arch (the obvious choice at that time of day). It’s quite a hike to reach it but in the winter it’s not as bad as it must be in the summer. The temperatures were quite moderate and I don’t imagine myself walking on that slickrock during the summer heat.
We spent about two hours on the hike to and around the arch, I was trying to cover every possible angle I haven’t yet seen in books, magazines or the net and it was fun. But the best shots were probably the classic ones. Can I help it if the arch sits the way it does? 
The Manti – La Sal mountains form a beautiful backdrop to the whole scene and climbing on the slickrock is something to be experienced to properly understand.
It’s got the texture of sandpaper so you can’t really slip even at ridiculous angles. Walking down steep gradients is easy but getting back up is an adventure. There just aren’t any grips you’d be able to hold and pull yourself up. With near vertical walls you need something to hold on otherwise you just tip backwards. With some magical tricks we managed to get ourselves off the ledge and back to level ground. I doubt anyone would have found us there if we didn’t get out ourselves
The next hike was a short 30min one after sunset to the Landscape Arch. It was getting dark, the sun was setting on the other side of the cliff so the photos were bound to be crap but hey…
After getting out of Arches NP after dark we had another very long drive up north towards Salt Lake City. It was so dark I don’t really know where we were driving, I just remember the desert at first and then twisting roads though the mountains. I really enjoyed the empty road and all those turns really made it a fun drive.
We made it to a motel in Provo (just south of SLC) around 11pm and almost immediately dozed off.
Altogether around 800km in some 14h of driving and some moderate amount of hiking. A very nice day to kick off the true roadtrip part of the vacation.
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