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

End of 2017-18 Season Summary

Since my last post, life kinda got on top of me. Crazy workload, trips to Europe, trips to Boston. There was time for work and skiing, and not much else. Hence here’s a brief wrap up of April and May skiing, more for posterity than anything else.

First stop was Whistler in early April. Great skiing, light crowds, hanging out with our  ski instructor friend Jess. It was funsies indeed, and a great way to belatedly hit 50 days for the season.

Friday 10,300m, Sat 11,300m, Sun 8300m vert

Saturday work meant we could only make the closing Sunday at Mission Ridge. It was the usual – great base, low crowds, Spring weather. Shame they closed.

Sunday 8000m vert

Work travel delayed the next trip until early May and a week riding Blackcomb. Despite the slightly limited terrain due to the new gondola construction to replace the Wizard and Solar Coaster chairs, there was some magnificent skiing. I love Spring at Blackcomb. Some GoPro footage of this week might emerge sometime if I buy a new laptop that can edit 60fps footage!

Sunday onwards: 6800m, 9400m, 11,000m, 8200m, 10,100m, 11,300m, 8600m vert

After a well deserved weekend at home we headed down to close the season at Mt Bachelor. The first 3 days were hardly Springtacular – the first day the lifts closed at 11.30am due to lightening (!) –  but the closing weekend brought sunny weather, silly costumes and lots of fun skiing.

3200m, 8200m, 6400m, 6300m, 6700m

Season Totals 63 days, 474,900m vert, 17 powder days

All in all, a decent season smattered with some truly wonderful skiing. Given the state of my knee on Sunday 7th January, I’m pretty pleased to still be able to churn out some decent vertical through the end of the season. The knee is far from perfect, but its manageable. Next challenge is biking season, with some long rides planned and serious training needed. If my knee survives that, there might just be some fun and games attempts to at least partially fix the bugger in early Fall.

Anything could happen.

Watch this space!

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

 

No shock really – May pow at Mt Bachelor

It’s been a big snow year at Mt Bachelor. This wasn’t the first time we’ve had May pow there, and I suspect it won’t be the last. For mid May, it was pretty delightful, with 3-5 inches each day on an increasingly mid-winter-like snowpack. These took the season total over 600 inches. Not bad.

Luckily the weather didn’t warm up too much each day to totally wreck the new snow. Some mushy clumping happened on the first day in the chopped up pow, but then the wind started loading the traverse towards the (closed) Summit Chair from Skyliner. It was perfect wind blown pow, free refills every run. That kept us busy until the lifts closed at 1.30pm. And smiling.

The wind dropped and the sun came out finally on Sunday. The Summit terrain was pretty scoured, and only really worthy of a couple of runs, including a decent full (top to bottom) Cow Face. While half the mountain’s small crowd waited for the Summit chair to open, we found the powdery, creamy Spring goods off the open Outback terrain. First tracks on Kangaroo, Ed’s trees, and several laps of fresh lines on Downunder were effortless skiing, ripping through soft Spring pow in the sun.

Welcome to Spring ski season at Mt Bachelor. There will be more before closing at Memorial weekend.

6200m, 7300m vert

68 days, 569,500m vert, 18 powder days

 

 

 

Mid March at Mt Bachelor

There actually wasn’t a lot to write home about for the first two days at Bachelor. A weak Pineapple Express had brought in some warm damp weather and yoyoing temperatures. The first morning delivered decent groomers until 11am when NOAA’s forecast of rain/snow mix became rather alarmingly accurate. We hung in until 2pm but it was all a bit soggy.

It was nothing compared to Saturday though, which was completely soggy. Super wet snow started about mid mountain, below that was a deluge. It wasn’t a long day.

The freezing levels slowly crept down overnight, and Sunday dawned clear and cool. Enough snow had fallen to cover the rain damage down low, and  create sublime, silken wind-packed pow on the top 2/3rds of the mountain. It wasn’t deep but man it skied beautifully.

The Summit lift opened for the first time in a solid week, and not surprisingly most of the (surprisingly!) moderate crowd headed up there. You really couldn’t go wrong. Laps down Cow’s Face to Cloudchaser rocked. The backside chutes were quite epic and deserted.

I’ll let the photos tell the story.

I can feel a very fine Spring ski season coming on at Mt Bachelor 😉

9300m, 3200m 8200m vert

51 days, 422,600m vert, 14 powder days

 

Closing weekend carnage at Mt Bachelor

We missed Memorial Day weekend at Bachelor last year. Everyone did. The mountain closed Mid May due to a horrible snow year in the West.

The base made it pretty easily this year. It was thin down low at West Village, but conditions hung in like Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. No doubt due to some fine work by the grooming crew.

The recent spell of super warm weather abated, making for some cool and gradually warming Spring skiing. On several days the conditions up high were just turning to perfect creamy corn when the lifts closed at 1pm. 2pm would have been nice indeed. Those runs off the Summit as the snow transforms to wondrous high speed soft Spring snow are magical things. They are well worth the hike.

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

The whole weekend was the usual recipe of great skiing – on and off groomed -silly costumes, lots of wine, and wandering around Bend in the evenings sampling its fine food and breweries. It really is a combination that is hard to beat.

Mt Bachelor Memorial Day madness

Mt Bachelor Memorial Day madness

Mt Bachelor Memorial Day madness

Mt Bachelor Memorial Day madness

Mt Bachelor Memorial Day madness

Until next Memorial weekend …

6400m, 9600m, 7200m, 7600m vert

Season Totals: 70 days, 566, 500m vert, 23 powder days

Topping 1/2 million vertical meters for the season at Mt Bachelor

It’s always nice to top 500Km vertical in a season by the end of April. It’s even nicer to do it at Mt Bachelor on super Spring ski weekend. Searing deep blue skies dominated, it never got too warm, leaving the snow slick all weekend.

Timing is always the key in Spring. With nothing high groomed off the Northwest Express, we cruised front side groomers on Saturday until the Summit runs came in to their own. Then, two top-to-bottom runs on Cows Face were the highlight. A few crunchy turns up high transitioned into heavenly high speed corn. Aiming for the rapidly defrosting patches of ice in the shade paid huge dividends with divine  turns for several 100m vertical until the catchline brought you to the long trek back to the Skyliner lift. Mt Bachelor epicness at it best.

Mt Bachelor – evil weekend lift lines Boobster 😉

Mt Bachelor – the wonder of corn snow on Cow Face

Mt Bachelor – corn on Cow Face

Mt Bachelor – corn on Cow Face

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor – the Krew

Sunday was markedly cooler early. With high winds, the Summit lift stayed closed, and all lifts ran at low speed for the first two hours, making for a slow start to the day. We tooled around on creamy groomers and soft off piste low down until 11am-ish when the ungroomed areas off the Northwest Express  started to ride well. We then lapped multiple lines west to east for the next two hours. sucking in some great turns, and flying down the lower groomed sections at speeds that would’ve been respectable in mid-winter.

If this crazy warm Spring doesn’t get out of hand – it was the warmest April on record in Seattle – there should be plenty more of this in May.

Fingers crossed.

Saturday 10,3oom, Sunday 7900m vert

Season Totals: 62 days, 501, 800m vert, 23 powder days

Mid March at Snoqualmie and Mt Bachelor

This has been a wild old fluctuating winter, but not one that has been short on snow. A Mid-March powder day at Snoqualmie on a surprisingly quiet Sunday was a fine thing. The low base meant things got a tad heavy by noon, but the steeps skied well all day.

By the following weekend, a big old high pressure had set in and it was serious Springtime at Mt Bachelor. Freeze-thaw cycles meant the west side of the volcano was frozen solid until early afternoon. On days like this, start at Sunrise and Cow Face on the east side of the Summit, and follow the sun. We were guiding a beginner Hobbit skier so vert wasn’t huge. But neither were the crowds. Really no lift lines all weekend.

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor

Mt Bachelor – crazy weekend lift lines at 1pm 🙂

Mt Bachelor

There’s so much to love about Spring skiing! But I suspect Winter might return before teh season is out.

Snoqualmie 7900m

Bachelor 7500m, 7500m vert

Season Totals: 49 days, 389, 300m vert, 22 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

 

Wintery Springtacular at Mt Bachelor

It’s 24F at the base of Mt Bachelor just before 9am on Saturday. There’s 7+ inches of light fresh snow blanketing the mountain, and crowds are light. Fog and moderate wind lie in store at the top of the lifts, but within 30 minutes the Outback and Northwest Express (NWX) chairs are open, creating a vast area of open terrain.

Welcome to May at Mt. Bachelor. The finest Spring skiing in the USA.

I spent 6 days there skiing in the first part of May, and apart from one classic sunny Spring day, replete with Summit laps, cone explorations and slow, progressively sticky snow, the weather was positively unSpring-like. We never saw the Summit chair open again, and strong westerlies kept NWX closed until the last spectacular powder day. 2 days brought heavy but substantial accumulations of new snow, and it all culminated with a winter-quality dumping. Traversing off NWX and dropping down the Western chutes into the trees was absolutely spectacular, with endless fresh lines to score until early afternoon when the low-down snow became heavy. We were like Twitter Trolls having endless fun with Ann Coulter, refusing to stop because it was all just too easy to enjoy.

The cover is great all over the mountain, so you never know, Springtacular might make an appearance for us at Memorial weekend. I hope so …

 

8200m, 9600m, 9000m, 8200m, 7800m, 7700m vert

Season Totals: 58 days, 479,400m vert

10 powder days, 1 chowda day