Mt. Bachelor Sun Nov 6

schubwa

schubwa

New member
Opening Day is still Nov 18 but they could easily open the lower lifts as we have a very sturdy early season snowpack. I hiked the cone yesterday and enjoyed deep soft turns with shots. The lower ski runs were deep with no grass showing. The nordic area was packed and the classic skiing was excellent. It started snowing hard mid-afternoon and rained hard down in town all night. We look to be dead in the bulls eye of this storm cycle expected to last till next weekend.
It is interesting to see how our experience mirrors what happened last season except flip-flopped. Mammoth Mtn (my old Alma Mater) struggles to make snow and last year the top was already open! It was pitiful here and we opened (barely) with 13" just before TGW. We'd get 3" and Mammoth would get 30".
 
Thanks for the report, schubwa! Welcome to Liftlines. We seem to get precious few reports from your neck of the woods, and I for one hope that you'll post often. Probably not a very photogenic day up on the cone yesterday, huh?
 
My guess is that schubwa hiked the cinder cone close to Pine Marten Lodge and not the Summit Cone 3,000 feet up.

As I have mentioned in late season discussions, Bachelor now has a Killington-style bean-counting management, and I would be surprised if they advance that Nov. 18 opening date no matter how much snow they get.
 
Thanks to you for the informative site!
You're dead on with the view of our new bean-counting owners here at Mt. Bachelor. Today dawned another snowy day with hordes of snow-starved locals climbing all over the place for lines. The (8:30)report was 5" new for a 30" base, the usual conservative phone report. Of course no food service and the parking lot was barely plowed but the place was teeming with people. I thought they made all their profits from food service, rentals, sport shop, etc. The "cone" is a easily accessed 38' slice of heaven right out of the parking lot (at 6300') and the line up the hill looked like the Yukon Goldrush! Skinners, booters, snowshoers and the party on top was like 1999. Lots of dogs to help pack things.
Today's runs were pretty good as I used my AT gear instead of the usual hike/w snowboard. The snow was deep and I missed my floaty deck but the hike up with the Dynafits was 15' faster than by foot. Later I classic skied down to Todd Lake on the (packed by snowmobile) Cascade Lakes Hwy, which was good nordic skiing. We're very excited here as it looks like we'll have one of those memorable seasons.
 
That sounds like quite the scene! One of my big regrets about our pre-season skin-to turns here is that dogs aren't allowed in Little Cottonwood Canyon (watershed restrictions).

Do me a favor and send some of that white stuff our way, will ya? :D
 
congrats on the early season good stuff. you guys deserve it as much as the rest of the north-west. i'll bet the dogs are loving it as much as the skiers!
 
As I have mentioned in late season discussions, Bachelor now has a Killington-style bean-counting management, and I would be surprised if they advance that Nov. 18 opening date no matter how much snow they get.
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Powdr Corp (Park City, Bachelor, Alpine Meadows, Boreal) seems a little more enlightened in California -- probably due to competition. For example, Boreal often opens in October with heavy snowmaking. Alpine extended its season to Memorial Day last year due to good snow. And my favorite, Alpine has $39 weekend lift tickets.

It is a shame about what they did to Bachelor spring skiing. While living in Seattle, I simply switched and went to Whistler instead of Bachelor for great May skiing.

I thought this was interesting - but dated - article on the management's decision. http://bend.com/news/ar_view.php?ar_id=4643

Spring has come to Central Oregon. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the crocuses are croaking, and Mount Bachelor is closing.

Every year, as soon as the clear, sunny days arrive and the skiing conditions become just about ideal, Mount Bachelor shuts down.

And every year, it seems to happen earlier. This year, the resort frosted off a lot of its season pass holders by starting its ?spring skiing season? (limited number of lifts running on reduced hours) on April 18.

What?s more, despite an abundant snowpack that should easily last through June, the mountain will cease operations entirely on May 27.

Powdr Corp., the Utah-based outfit that acquired Mount Bachelor in a hostile takeover last year, says the early closing is purely a matter of economics: When the number of skiers falls below 1,000 a day, it simply doesn?t pay to keep the resort running.

Season pass holders have a different view of the economics. They shelled out at least $860 for their pass ($910 if they bought it after Oct. 31) and they think the early closing is (as one young snowboarder put it in a news account) ?totally bogus.?

It?s hard to blame them. Look at the numbers: With an all-day adult pass costing $42, a season pass holder has to ski at least 21 days to break even.
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Alpine Meadows was historically the Tahoe area that stayed open the latest. I skied there myself in late May of 1982, despite the fact that it had sustained substantial damage to the base lodge and at least one lift from an avalanche in early April. Last year Alpine closed Memorial Day but probably had enough snow to go longer.

Alpine's spring snow does tend to get much stickier than at Mammoth or Bachelor. The bend.com article does touch on the rather unique characteristics of Mt. Bachelor skiing. Spring skiing is very reliable there with the natural corn forming throughout the day on the 360 degree exposure of its Summit cone. And in winter the Summit is closed for wind, visibility or avalanche control at least 30% of the time.

So it is especially grating to see spring operation trimmed because I believed Bachelor to be the best spring area in North America, and wrote an Inside Tracks article explaining that after the 2000 NASJA meeting. I have since slightly modified this article online http://webpages.charter.net/tcrocker818/late01.htm to reflect the change in operations at Bachelor.
 
Alpine Meadows was historically the Tahoe area that stayed open the latest. I skied there myself in late May of 1982, despite the fact that it had sustained substantial damage to the base lodge and at least one lift from an avalanche in early April. Last year Alpine closed Memorial Day but probably had enough snow to go longer.
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That's amazing they stayed open that year. I still remember being a kid in NY-- and watching the aftermath of those avalanches.

Anyways, Squaw stayed open until Memorial Day last year -- so Alpine did too. Though Squaw offer is weaker -- essentially a pasage way to Granite Chief.


You've got this right...perhaps the least marketed, top-quality experience in US skiing. And it's not even shown on the trail map. Stupid.

The piece de resistance, not obvious from a casual view of the trail map, is the vast area on the south and southwest side of the Summit: a massive expanse of corn snow, ending at a well-graded cat track which goes for 3 miles around to the Northwest Territory lift. This area is big: 1,900 vertical fall lines of upper intermediate pitch, about the size of Vail's original back bowl with about 5% of the skier traffic. As the cat track is hidden from view about 500 feet below tree line, there is a real backcountry ambience with panoramic views of the Cascade Lakes Wilderness. The backside of Summit has a lot of wind crust and variable snow in the winter, but for spring it is magnificent.
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Anyways, I cannot comment on spring skiing at Bachelor. I only encountered mid-winter conditions in April. Beautiful powder off the back-side. Limitless. And high-quality. Often I would ski Mt. Hood before Bachelor -- sludge at Hood, primo at Bachelor. Frankly, I think Bachelor @ 9000 is equivalent to Whistler @ 7000. (1000 mile difference or so -- it's got to equivalent.)

I think Bachelor almost limited themsleves - even under pre-Powdr management - when they shut down the Northwest Exrpess. (Which was often around April 15-20 or so?) That is thousands of ski acres they are shutting down. And some great north facing terrain.

Whistler in May? A suite with hot tub overlooking the village - for 6 - can go for as low as $200/night -- if you look hard. And the bowls at Whislter are all open/raging. Generally, everything off of Green/Emerald and Red is still going. Their is a vibe in Whistler that is really strong. I felt mid-winter in May.
 
Whistler @ 7,000 latitude 50 = Bachelor @ 9,000 latitude 44 = Mammoth @ 11,000 latitude 37. This climate is optimal for producing deep snowpack and outstanding spring skiing. Does Whistler's weather clear up in May or is it still overcast most of the time? That late in the season clear is better for timing a consistent snow surface. Latest I was at Whistler was April 4, and at that time the overcast helped retain winter conditions in the alpine.

Pre-Powdr Bachelor would stop daily operation of Northwest after 3rd weekend in April but run it for 2-3 more weekends.

4 of my 5 Bachelor trips were before Northwest was built. So I have skied the backside only on that last trip April 7-9, 2000. But the corn snow was just as good on the frontside May 3-4, 1990. And on May 2 I had skied 4 hours in drizzle at Timberline.

I have to believe given chronic crosswinds that the backside of Summit would have a lot of windcrust in winter. My impression from locals is that for powder ski days it's best to run laps on Northwest, working the trees skier's left down to the cat track.

I would hypothesize that since Mt. Bachelor will never have on-mountain lodging Powdr concluded that it could never compete as a national destination resort. Since it will remain a regional ski area only, Powdr is running it as what Rusty Gregory called "an Income Investment" during the recent Mammoth sale process. Rusty told the Mammoth locals that they should not want such a purchaser for Mammoth, as it would result in cutbacks in employment and mountain operations.

It's hard to argue with Powdr since Mt. Bachelor does seem to be off the radar nationally. I've seen all sorts of lists of favored ski areas, by magazines, polls, and in these message boards and almost no one rates Bachelor as high as I do.
 
Whistler @ 7,000 latitude 50 = Bachelor @ 9,000 latitude 44 = Mammoth @ 11,000 latitude 37. This climate is optimal for producing deep snowpack and outstanding spring skiing. Does Whistler's weather clear up in May or is it still overcast most of the time? That late in the season clear is better for timing a consistent snow surface. Latest I was at Whistler was April 4, and at that time the overcast helped retain winter conditions in the alpine
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May in the NW is half/half for the most part. There are longer periods of sunny breaks. You often get 2-4 days -- maybe more -- of sunny weather between fronts that are falling apart with not much precip for 2-3 days. It's not California uber sunshine with super clear skies. Ever. But it's pretty easy to round up friends for a NOAA-scheduled (or Canadian weather service) sunny weekend for Whistler. Maybe 50% coastal sunny. California (SF) dense fog doea not exist in the NW.

The only important argument I would like to point out outside of stats -- that Whistler has a great vibe about it. An attitude. Things are busy. If there is one ski town still partying -- still has a reason to be going off -- it's Whistler. You can hang out with some winners/and posers of the ski world. I've encountered this in May. A few times. Super fun. You want skiers who are psyched to ski at this point in the season. Whislter. That's it.

(My brother in Telluride is doing the opposite at this time. Vail, Park City are probably dead).

4 of my 5 Bachelor trips were before Northwest was built. So I have skied the backside only on that last trip April 7-9, 2000. But the corn snow was just as good on the frontside May 3-4, 1990. And on May 2 I had skied 4 hours in drizzle at Timberline.
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Didn't you think the backside was great? You get into one of the lava flows/chutes and it's heaven with 10" on it. The backside of Bahelor again is one of the few suprises in skiing.

It's hard to argue with Powdr since Mt. Bachelor does seem to be off the radar nationally. I've seen all sorts of lists of favored ski areas, by magazines, polls, and in these message boards and almost no one rates Bachelor as high as I do.
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I think you are correct. Rate Bachelor high. It's one of the few 360 mountains -- if any. Bend rocks.

Look, the Northwest gets shafted all the time. In 1999-2000 in Seattle, I never tuned my skis because the quality was always high and bases so deep. I did not come close to a rock all season. Even in the Alpental or Crystal backcountry.

I dare you to ask -- if they have actually skied Bachelor. I skied it because I lived in Seattle. But most East skiers (I'd love the market research on this) go to Denver, SLC, maybe Reno, Jackson, Bozeman or Vancouver in lesser numbers. They have not. Portland and drive 3 hours? That's hard to market.

Please continue to write Bachelor up. It is great. As good as Steamboat, Park City, Winter Park, Taos -- but it will never get the same respect.
 
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