Friday July 24th part 1 - Copper Peak

Adventure day! Mom, Dad, Amy, the kids and I and some Blue Lake neighbors met up, split up into two cars and headed for the UP! The plan was to hit Black River Harbor beach and waterfalls and have a picnic and then come back in time for the waterski show.

On the way there we decided to go to Copper Peak also since we were right there. I remember riding the chair lift up once as a kid but for some reason the elevator and actual ski jump were closed.

Alex was SO excited to go to the top. I expected him to start getting nervous once it was actually our turn to get on the chair lift. No way. He grinned from ear to ear all the way to the top.

We rode the elevator up 18 stories and came out onto a fenced in platform where we realized it was really, really windy up there.

From there you can choose to climb another 8 stories worth of stairs to the actual top of the ski jump. The first set of "stairs" were 2x4 boards nailed at a steep angle on the side of the jumping ramp. Then there was another platform and you start up on metal grate steps. It is wide open between stairs and of course you can see right through all the grates.

About one flight up the metal stairs is when we realized that the entire structure was swaying in the wind. Swaying a lot in the wind.

At that point I asked Alex if he really wanted to keep going to the top. I mean really, do you really want to go to the top?? (Because quite frankly I didn't care to go to the top right then) He looked at me like I was crazy....."Moooommmmm...YES!"

I will admit that it was worth it to go to the top. Alex said he thinks he understands what jet pilots feel like now soaring above everything!

(You'll notice I did not get many pictures from the top. The whole swaying in the wind thing made me quite dizzy and I was just holding on to a railing for the most part.)

When we were waiting to get back on the elevator Alex was pulling on my sleeve and whispered "Mom - when do we get to slide down that ramp??" Um, NEVER! He was totally bummed that going down the ramp was not part of the tour!

He loved the chair lift ride down too and at the bottom all the workers made a big deal that he made it all the way to the top. He had a bit of a swagger to his walk for the rest of the day.