ZAprès Wants to Bring Marijuana Users Out From Hiding on the Mountain

Jamie Cooper knows she can't reverse decades of prohibition overnight, but maybe some powder days will help change a few minds.

Getting stoned on the slopes is an honored tradition for many skiers and snowboarders, but it's always been a hush-hush activity thanks to cannabis bans at mountain resorts. Cooper, who's worked in both the ski and cannabis industries, aims to slowly break down walls that cannabis consumers face while visiting popular Colorado ski towns with her new event series, ZAprès.

"The ski industry in Colorado is incredible, and it's the reason a lot of people live out here," she notes. "There is a lot of crossover potential in skiers, snowboarders and cannabis consumers, too, so we're excited and ready to finally get this event off."

Similar to Denver's Cannabis Golf League and CannaVenture's hiking trips, ZAprès is a way for the Colorado cannabis scene to further connect while proving that it can conduct itself responsibly, Cooper explains. "There are ways to connect with each other without being at a bar with name tags. You can do it over the ski lift or on the mountain. So many of these cannabis companies market around a lifestyle, and this is a lifestyle."

ZAprès currently has two gatherings scheduled in Colorado this April, at Keystone and Copper Mountain, as well as outings in Michigan in February. No cannabis use is advertised or encouraged at the events, according to Cooper, but each day of skiing includes pre- and post-mountain hangouts for cannabis lovers or members of the industry, and she's not going to be hovering over ZAprès participants while they're on the slopes or in the parking lot.

After moving to Denver from Texas in the early 2000s to work as a television news producer at Fox31, Cooper found herself covering events like the Dew Tour and X Games and became consumed by skiing. She eventually moved to Summit County to work as a marketer for a vacation rental company just so she could be closer to the hills. In 2014, the same year recreational pot sales began in Colorado, she relocated to Michigan. A medical marijuana patient and longtime user of the plant, Cooper shifted her marketing talents to cannabis upon moving to that state and is now a regional director for pot-centric lifestyle media company Sensi.

"The cannabis space there wasn't anything like it is now. Shops would open and they were getting raided by state police. People were getting arrested for consuming cannabis without a medical marijuana card," she recalls. "Moving from Colorado, where it was more accepted, it was just like, wow, what is going on here? It made me want to get involved."

Although cannabis sales have been legal in Colorado for over a decade and are allowed in mountain resort towns such as Aspen, Breckenridge, Steamboat Springs, Telluride and Winter Park, among others, finding a place to socially consume is much harder. Only a small handful of towns and counties in Colorado currently permit lounges or party buses for cannabis use, and fewer than ten such businesses are currently open. Dillon is the only Summit County town with a law in place allowing cannabis hospitality venues, but to date, nothing has come close to opening.

Even as Michigan's recreational cannabis space has evolved to the tune of $3 billion in annual dispensary sales, Cooper sees a lull in cannabis events in her current home state. She's also well aware of Colorado's struggles with pot hospitality, so she hatched a plan to create an element of weed ’n' ski. A fan of a good "safety meeting among the trees" with a pre-roll, Cooper will remind her fellow cannabis-using skiers and snowboarders to be careful and respectful of others, noting that most ski mountain land is owned by the federal government or whichever major corporation owns the resort.

"It's a little interesting in Colorado — that's why I like these events. We're not advertising cannabis consumption at all," she says. "I reached out to a resort in Colorado and got shut down pretty quickly, but my hope over the next couple of years is to prove that cannabis users are not dangerous on the hill. Alcohol consumption is more dangerous."

Cooper is currently in talks with several major dispensary chains and cannabis brands to sponsor ZAprès events in Colorado. If they go well this year, she plans to hold a similar river rafting event for the Colorado cannabis scene this summer.

ZAprès will run from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 3, at Keystone Ski Resort, and on Thursday, April 4, at Copper Mountain. Tickets (21+) are $50 each and include access to the event after skiing or riding, dinner and a goodie bag; lift tickets and equipment must be acquired separately.