Mt. Bachelor trip from 4/14 to 4/15

[Tonyr]

Resort or Ski Area

Mt. Bachelor

Date

Apr 14, 2025

Snow Conditions

1. Slush or Spring Snow
2. Sticky

We took an early morning flight down to Redmond from Seattle, checked into the hotel at Bend, did some work, then around 1.30 pm Pacific time we arrived at Mt Bachelor to ski for a couple of hours. It's probably the most impressive looking mountain as you drive up to the resort, the terrain on the other hand is pretty mild.

The Summit chair was open so we skied down that a couple of times, this area reminded me of the Back Bowls at Vail. If you like open bowl skiing then this is the place for you assuming the Summit Chair opens, which I hear gets put on wind holds alot. We got lucky today...


Mt Bachelor has 360 degree skiing and we definitely went too far to the skiers right dropping in near Cow's Face on the first run. It was fun coming down in perfect spring conditions but the run out back to the lift was terrible. It took a good 20 minutes to skate back in sticky snow so we didn't do that again!

We then did a couple runs off the lower lifts through the trees which are very widely spaced and mellow. These must be a ton of fun in fresh snow. Reminded me of the trees at Brighton but a little wider spaced...


We took our last run down from the Summit Chair and traversed all the way to the skiers left this time to hit what looked like the steepest terrain on the mountain called the Cirque Bowl. It was pretty wind blown and icy at the top then as you went down a little further the snow turned into perfect spring conditions..





We weren't huge fans of this place. I'm not an above tree line open bowl type of skier but I know alot of people love this type of terrain. The trees towards the bottom of the mountain were pretty good but the snow was sticky in the lower mountain areas today. Probably won't ski here long tomorrow either, it is supposed to hit over 70 degrees in Bend.

 

[Tonyr]

Got out for 2 hours today. It's was a 70 degree spring skiing day. Loved being able to ski in sunglasses!...


We did 5 runs from top to bottom off the Summit Chair. The traverse going into the Cirque Bowl makes you feel like your skiing at the edge of the world...




While Mt. Bachelor really isn't our cup of tea, I'm glad we tried it. We loved Bend which is a really cool town. Reminded me of an upscale version of Moab with trees instead of the desert. I'd definitely come back in the summer if we made a second visit to the area one day. I hope you enjoyed the report.

 

[jimk]

Enjoyed both your recent reports. I've never skied Crystal, but I've heard it has some burly terrain. I had a fine 3 day visit to Bachelor with my son about a dozen years ago. When you don't get to a place very often lucking out with good snow can really affect your impression of the place

 

[Tonyr]

Enjoyed both your recent reports. I've never skied Crystal, but I've heard it has some burly terrain. I had a fine 3 day visit to Bachelor with my son about a dozen years ago. When you don't get to a place very often lucking out with good snow can really affect your impression of the place

Thanks Jim! If we skied Bachelor after a foot of snow I'm sure my opinion of the resort would change as the tree skiing on the lower sections of the mountain would be fantastic. On the other hand, we hit Crystal as good as we could have hit it for April.

That aside, Crystal's terrain is substantially rowdier than Bachelor's which is the type of skiing we like. I probably wouldn't make a special trip back to ski either resort but If we returned to the Pacific Northwest again I'd come back to Bend in the summer.

The town is fantastic, it has tons of mom and pop shops and lots of nice restaurants. I'd say for ski towns you have Aspen, Park City, Telluride as the top 3. Then Bend would be somewhere in the next 3 best ski towns. I like it here better than Jackson for example and I can tell we'd have alot of fun hiking the trails around Bachelor in the summer.

 

[SkiingInABlueDream]

Enjoyed your report. I've been to Bachelor 6 times now, about 3 weeks ago most recently. I'll agree that it's not a particularly challenging mountain but my group simply enjoys it, along with the town of Bend.
Also, there is an entirely other aspect to the mountain when the Northwest chair and terrain are open.

 

[thetrailboss]

Wow! Awesome pics!