Spring at Mt Bachelor

We scored a $200-ish Bachelor Spring pass in late March. With a great base, it seemed like a good year to amortize costs and spend my semester break there instead of Whistler. And then return for the madness of the closing weekend.

The first week was total bluebird. With the Northwest Express and Summit open, there was plenty of terrain to explore. True Spring skiing didn’t really arrive until the end of the week though. Cold, strong northwest winds brought temperatures more reminiscent of February than the end of April.

The Summit was deserted as even the single groomer was an ice sheet. Each day we started in the sun on the east side of the mountain, and gradually moved west. By mid-morning the groomers heading down to Northwest were just about skiable. Unfortunately, on Spring schedule, the lift closed at 1pm, so the window for screaming groomers was small.

It was only by Friday that the Summit defrosted and we finally saw some true Spring skiing off the Summit. Friday and Saturday were great. Creamy corn, carvable breakable glass-like ice shards and perfect untracked lines down the gullies off the west side of the Summit. Sunday was actually a tad too warm, and sticky heavy snow finally drove us back to the lower groomers. No complaints though – it was great to see 3 true Spring ski days from 7. And Bend is a mighty fine place to spend a week!

11,100, 9300, 9100, 9600, 9400, 8700, 8000m vert

2.5 weeks later we returned for closing weekend. By this time Spring had departed again. We had a foggy day with rain from 11am, then a sunny but cool day, with some very good corn. Saturday was primo. Blue skies, enough sun to make Cow Face and the gullies perfection on the east side by 10am. Then after a couple of crater lines, we hiked the Summit for 3 great runs off the Northwest side.

Saturday was great. Sunday was slop. About 3 inches of it all over the mountain. Heavy. Sludgy. Groomer covering. Knee twisting. We were saved by Coffee. For some reason the sludge was minimal and it skied fast and smooth. We occasionally ventured into another run, but nearly always regretted it! No one made it past 1pm. Beer and end of season shenanigans were more appealing options.

So a 60 day season ended on a bit of a fizzer. it was an odd one weather wise. Dry before Xmas. Cold and slow in January. Full on Winter in February. And some very good March and April skiing. Overall, a lot of fun!!

8000, 8700, 7000, 5400m vert

11 days, 94,300m vert

Season Totals 60 days, 485,500m vert, 14 powder days

Closing weekend at Mt Bachelor 2017

Another year, another crazy fun ski weekend on Memorial weekend at Mt Bachelor. Due to this very belated post, I’ll just summarize below.

Thursday and Friday were perfect, deserted, Spring ski conditions. A solid freeze overnight followed by sun and light winds made for ‘go anywhere’ conditions, as long as you followed the sun from east to west around the mountain. Some truly great skiing.

Cows Face

above Pine Marten lift

Cows Face

Off the Summit towards NWX

Friday night we lost the hard freeze. There was still enormous fun to be had for the next two days, especially with us all dressed in ridiculous costumes. We ended the season with the traditional Summit hike, shots on the top, and a rip roaring run down the creamy west side chutes to the top of the Northwest Chair and then on to Old Skyliner and the bar.

Traversing in our best outfits 🙂

From the Summit

chairlift beauties

The Crew

Corny teleturns

Pond skimmers

Scary 🙂

After the lifts closed – our Summit shots before the run down

‘Til next year … in the North America anyway. We still had one ski trip to go this season 🙂

9500m, 8300m, 6700m, 6300m vert

Season totals: 74 days, 619,900m vert, 18 powder days

 

Closing the 2014 season down at Mt Bachelor

A deep late-May base, weather that finally started to resemble Spring and a ton of terrain to play on – it was a fine closing weekend at Bachelor.

Friday started out clear but clouds moved in mid morning, closing the Summit down and restricting us to cruising the lower mountain, which fortunately stayed relatively free of slow, sticky snow.

Saturday and Sunday saw the sun reign, fighting off a few lingering persistent clouds. These kept the temperatures reasonable, and the snow in great shape for most of the weekend. Perfect conditions for end of season costumes, in fact.

After fast early morning groomers, 10am runs runs down Cow Face were epic, carving creamy fresh lines all the way to the cat track. As the sun got higher, hikes to the summit held treasures that “Captain” Jack Sparrow would covet.This was great Spring skiing – finally. And very. very funny  😉

As the lifts closed for the season, we sat in the sun (and strong wind)  at the summit, supped the last drops of a horrible Absinthe, and shredded all the way down to the bar, a few thousand feet below, for some well earned end of season beers. Bring on November …. and here’s the video to keep us going until then.

3 days 9700m, 7900m, 7400m vert

Final Season Totals: 61 days, 504,400m vert

10 powder days, 1 chowda day