Lovely morning but with hard pack on the hill, figured there was no reason to rush, so took the 10 minute walk to downtown and started checking out the coffee options. Actually there are probably more brewpubs here than cafes. Ended up at The Commons, overlooking the Deschutes – which is just a small stream here – for a perfectly acceptable offering.
Easy 30 min drive up to Bachelor – the road just gently and steadily climbs up and for the last bit you’re out in the open with the mountain and The Sisters dominating the skyline. Picked up my 3 day pass and headed out to a basically deserted base area. They really got hit hard here last week by the ice storm that came wrapped up in the atmospheric river. I was even more keen now to be able to ski off the summit lift after not being able to get to the top at Mt Hood, but it looks like I’m in for continuing disappointment. It took them days to start deicing the top of the lift, only to discover a foot of ice on the lift communications cable had knocked it out – will take most of the week if not longer to repair it. Oh well.
Stunning outlook from the top of Pine Marten. Did a warm up dowd coffee – firm but not as bad as I’d feared it might be and from about half way down it actually skiied very well. Did a run down Outback then kept going to catch Northwest up – the highest point you can get on the mountain with Summit out of action. Quite astounding ice and snow buildups at the top and some most impressive snowghosts. Had a great run down Olympian back to base, grabbed a coffee then started working across toward Cloudchaser – a new lift since my last visit here.
The whole of this pod – even skiing the liftline – is intermediate pitch and with a little fresh snow would be a great playground. Some relatively open trees at the top and fun rolling terrain. Did venture off trail a couple of times but looked much better than it was so once again stuck to the groomed. Another day with 0 points for fresh and zillions of points for spectacular and fun. Wind had been steadily picking up and I was most happy I stuck with what seemed like overdressing at the start of the day. When I started heading back to the middle of the mountain the wind was really howling and straight into my face. Alternating between sheet ice and really nice windblown, the traverse back had it’s challenging moments. One more trip up Pine Marten and the wind blew me back down to base to round out the day.
Had made a point of finding Deschutes Brewery on this mornings wander, and headed there for pizza and beer for dinner. Disappointed to find that the Zarabanda – their beer I’d found in Portland that got me interested in Saison as a style – was no longer being made. Had a cloudy pale ale that was a bit weird but grew on me and a taste of another ale that will be my first choice next visit.
Next (and final) week looking pretty dry at this stage, but the intervening Presidents Holiday long weekend – when I’d planned to avoid skiing to avoid the accompanying crowds and have a relaxed drive back to Utah- is starting to shape up as a realistic last chance to ski some fresh so like all good plans it looks like being thrown out the window. The 3 day ticket here can be used over 5 days, so will probably hang back on using the other 2 days until the forecasts become a bit clearer.