Ski Mt. Bachelor

Mt. Bachelor is the only place we ever skied where they handed out rain coats with the lift tickets, and they were needed. With a base of only 6,300 ft. attitude, Mt. Bachelor has frequent spells of mild, rainy weather. Tucked into one of the resorts disposable rain coats, a couple days, we never too bothered by the rain. Mt. Bachelor is a lone volcano cone, still active, on the east side of the Cascade Range, part of the same system of volcanos as nearby Mt St Helen’s. We found some spots along the runs where volcanic action inside the mountain had opened fissures
in the snow from which clouds of steam flowed.

Mt. Bachelor has two base areas, West Village and Sunrise Lodge. The Sunrise Base, the first parking lot you come to, serves most of Mt. Bachelor Beginner runs and some easier Intermediates. West Village is the main base, with restaurants and all that stuff. Green runs connect the two base areas. The ski area has 71 runs over 3,680 acres, with 1,600 acres groomed every day (grooming is essential for the wet, dense snow).

We especially liked the Outback area, the most difficult intermediate runs, and the runs off the Summit lift, weather permitting, which wasn’t too often. Solitary Mt. Bachelor stands like an upside down cone at the edge of the central Oregon desert. Eight chair lifts extend almost 3/4 the way around the cone, and one chair climbs from the tree line to the wide open snow fields below the summit at 9,065 ft. for a total vertical drop of ,3, 400 ft, but it takes two lift rides to get from bottom to top.

Most runs face north, and, on a clear day, they face the Three Sisters, a clump of three nearby volcanos, making for an impressive view, especially from the summit.

Combining the climate of the Pacific Northwest with Mt. Bachelor relatively low altitude produces wet, heavy snow, but the resort copes with extensive grooming. The Pine Marten Lift is named after the Pine Marten, a local ground squirrel that changes color from white in winter to brown in the warm months.

Mt. Bachelor has one of our all time favorite runs, the intermediate Old Skyliner off the Pine Marten chair. Old Skyliner is a narrow, twisting path cut through the evergreen forest, a real treat to ski.

Quick Tips:

East coast skier’s looking for a great ski week trip should consider Mt. Bachelor. Before the airlines ruined air travel with the hub-and-spoke system, we skied mostly in Utah because we could take a nonstop flight from the East coast before 9:00am and have an afternoon’s skiing in Utah, but hub-and-spoke turned most trips to the central Rockies into an all day journey. So we figured, why not try the west coast? We can get there as fast as anywhere else. That led us to our first trip to Mt. Bachelor, and we kept going back until we moved to Utah to become ski
bums.

My wife was a teacher then, so we were limited to skiing at Christmas and Easter. We discovered that most of Mt. Bachelor’ visitors come from California, and California is usually on a different vacation schedule at Easter than the East coast, making Mt. Bachelor relatively less crowded that ski areas in the Rockies or on the East coast.

There are lots of lodging options for a Mt. Bachelor trip. The Inn of the Seventh Mountain is the closest major resort (condo rentals), Our friends f rom Portland, who often joined us for a few days skiing, preferred to stay here for the diversions it offered for their 19 year old kid.

Bend, with lots of lodging and restaurant options, is an easy drive on a good road with great views (it’s one end of the Cascade Lakes Scenic Drive). In between is Sunriver Resort, one of the preeminent resorts of the Pacific Northwest. At least around Easter on most years, you can choose to ski at Mt. Bachelor or play golf at Sunriver.

Best Way To Get Around:

Bend is about 120 miles from the Portland airport. After trying various routes between the airport and Bend, we settled on this very scenic drive, which will take 3-4 hours if you do it right. We would head east from the airport through the Columbia river Gorge on US Rt 30, which runs parallel to I-80. Rt 30 passes a half dozen waterfalls coming down the slopes of Mt Hood. Two of the them, Multnomah Falls and Horsetail Falls are very near the road, necessary stopping
places. At Hood River, we took OR Rt 36 north along the east side of Mt Hood. On clear days, this road presents spectacular views of snow capped Mt Hood, almost 10,000 feet above the road. A lift turn where OR Rt 36 ends at US Rt 26 leads right into Bend, after merging with US Rt 97.

After Mt Hood and the waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge, we especially liked visiting The Cover Palisades State Park, about 15 miles from US 97 near Madras and the Newberry National Volcanic Monument just south of Bend. We visited Newberry one day after skiing at Mt Bachelor– take the road to Sunriver from the mountain and Newberry is almost across the street, on the east side of US Rt 97

On one trip, we took US Rt 26 from Portland to Bend, crossing the southern slopes of Mt Hood. We stopped for two nights at famed Timberline Lodge, buried in the vast snows of Mt Hood, and skied at the small area beside the lodge. Although this was a scenic drive, it pales in comparison to the drive through the Columba River Gorge and across Mt Hood on OR Rt 36.

Skiers can also fly into Redmond, less than 20 miles from Bend. Some Bend hotels have airport shuttles, and there is also a shuttle to Mt Bachelor. Technically then, you can ski Mt Bachelor without having a car, but don’t do it. Rent a car. This is a great vacation combining sightseeing and skiing if you do it as described above.

Surfing ratings of The Riverhouse on the web shows a great range of reaction to the motel, running from strong dislike to positive raves. We stayed at the Riverhouse on several ski trips over about a decade, and from those visits, I think that what lies behind the disparate view points is the type and location of the room. Most of the time, we liked the room we had very much, in large part because we hit the jackpot on our first visit and kept returning to that type of room.  When contemplating a stay at The Riverhouse, don’t think of it as planning a stay at a motel, you must focus on the particular room and its location. I will start with a description on the location  we like, and as the real estate ladies say, it is about location, location, location. So pay attention to location.

The rooms at The Riverhouse are three different sets of buildings along the Deschutes River in the outskirts of Bend. The first building overlooks the highway on one side and the parking lot–euphemistically called “courtyard view” on The Riverhouse’s web site. The highway side rooms are probably the ones that get complaints about traffic noise. Where we were, we never had a noise problem. These rooms are also small, and the lowest priced.

The second set of buildings is on the river bank, and they are roughly twice as large as the road side/courtyard rooms. The door to rooms is on one side of the building. The rooms themselves run the entire width of the building to large glass doors overlooking the river. The river bank on the other side of the river is higher than the first floor river view rooms, so the view from these rooms is 100% nature– river and brush and tree covered bank across the river. We preferred this location, and always stayed here except one trip when no river view room was available. On that
trip, we tried a courtyard view room. The next time there was no river view available, we stayed at a different motel.

These two buildings on the highway side of the river were the original motel, dating back at least to the 1970s. Around 1990, they build a third set of rooms across the river, at the edge of their golf course. These looked like nice rooms, but we never stayed there, always opting for the river view rooms.

Except for one summer trip, we went to Bend for ski weeks, probably spending a total of 7-8 weeks there so far. Our first choice of rooms is a first floor river view room at The Riverhouse. Our second choice is someplace else.

The river views rooms are grandly spacious, and well furnished– chairs, a couch, micro wave, refrigerator, Refrigerators & Microwaves, Wireless Internet connections, 56K Modem Access, Direct Dial Phones & Free Local Calling, Voice Mail & Wake-up Service, Double Vanities & Full Length Mirrors, Granite counter tops, Hair dryer, Cable Color TV with H2O, DVD players, Iron & Ironing Board, Coffee & Coffee Maker, Work Desk, and Room Service in all rooms. There was plenty of storage space for all the stuff required for a ski week in our river view rooms. Construction is solid and noise free. We have stayed in lot of lodgings on ski trips, but nowhere was our room so inviting at the end of the day than at The Riverhouse.

A note to skiers living on the East Coast or in the Midwest– consider a ski trip to Bend/Mt Bachelor. It is as easy to get to a Colorado resorts because you can fly to Portland, OR, nonstop. Then it is a very scenic drive to Bend, a pleasant little community on the east side of the Cascade Range, with the forested hills of the mountain on one side of town and the Oregon desert on the other.

In plotting your route to Mt Bachelor from The Riverhouse, get directions to go by way of the town park, a pleasant drive along the river where somebody seems to away be feeding the ducks and geese. Oddly for a western town, the houses across the street from the town park reminded us a New England village.

Prices: $89 to $245 for the river view Gilchrist Suite with two separate bedrooms, living room, kitchen, two full baths, and again, pick your room with care.