Vito ValentinettiDay 37
Location: Bend, OR
Resorts: 18 out of 50
With over 3,600 skiable acres and a vertical drop of in the neigborhood of 3,365 feet, Mt. Bachelor is one of the largest ski areas in the Pacific Northwest. Also, it’s a volcano which is awesome. Interesting fun fact: Mt. Bachelor gets its name because it stands apart from the Three Sisters, the other prominent peaks in the Bend area. Here’s another interesting fun fact: As far as we know, Mt. Bachelor is the only ski area in the country that uses a sliding scale for ticket pricing. It’s an innovative idea that provides a ticket price based on factors such as visibility, wind, precipitation and temperature. On a perfect day at Mt. Bachelor, you’re looking at a $69 ticket — a weather challenged day might be as low as $49.
On the day we hit Mt. Bachelor, tickets were at $59 because a snowstorm buried the top of the mountain and closing down the Summit lift. We couldn’t complain. Oregon has been having a tough winter and we certainly didn’t expect the snow that started at 8 in the morning and lasted throughout the day.
With the upper sections closed, all the locals pointed us to the trees on Northwest Express. We weren’t disappointed, and spent the day hiding in the glades where the visibility and the snow were perfect.
In the afternoon, it cleared up a bit which was enough to take a few hiking laps. There’s an inbounds hiking nub that’s quite a bit of fun. It’s a good steep climb, then a short hike along the ridge, and finally, a nice wide open powder field that gave up the best turns of the day.
Bummer that we never made it to the top of the volcano, but you can’t complain when six inches of powder filled trees were on the agenda. That alone is more than enough reason to return to Mt. Bachelor.
Apres-Ski Report:
Bend, Bend, Bend. Only twenty miles down the road from Mt. Bachelor, Bend became our base. President’s Day Weekend is the worst ski weekend of the year and we were determined to lay low and take a few days off. We kicked the weekend off at Velvet with a bubble gum machine full of vodka and…well, that’s a whole other story. Stay tuned for our picks in Bend.
The Cheat Sheet:
Mt. Bachelor Ski Area
13000 SW Century Dr
Bend, OR
