Let’s see… how to formulate this story without eliciting supreme jealousy… ??? Eh, forget it. There’s no way around it.

Freeskier Magazine has been posted up at Copper Mountain for a little over a week now testing skis. Last week was the “Micro-brew” test, where our testers put the skis from some smaller, independent companies through the ringer. Starting Monday, we’ve had the big dogs out to play around in the pow that Copper ordered up for us. And it’s been snowing since we got here, small amounts last week and five inches a day for the last few days.

And last night we gathered the troops at Endos in Copper’s main village to drink Coors, eat wings and maybe do a few shots. Julia the bartender and Veronica the waitress were with us every step of the way producing pitchers of the Banquet beer out of thin air and mixing shots that tasted like lime Skittles (Captain Morgan lime and Red Bull, try it).

Folks from all the ski companies were there partaking in the festivities, enjoying Copper Mountain and tapping the Rockies. Lauren Pelletreau and David Roth, our Copper Mountain hosts, also came down to check out the happenings and make sure we were all set for ski testing. They also hooked up a round of tubing, which we’ll be sure to utilize this afternoon.

Big thanks to our partners: Coors, Hestra, Atomic, Burgess, Rip Curl, Nimbus Independent, Poor Boyz, and of course, Endos in Copper Mountain center village.

The super-post covering the first half of the test is coming up tonight, but here’s a little teaser from last week’s micro-brew test, when we hosted Surface, Avant, Storm, Slant, SCC, Bluehouse, Boone, Heidi, High Society, Ellison, DPS, Faction, Folsom, Icelantic, Ski Logik and others.