Douglas Cochrane
So Many Ski Areas – So Little Time
For The New Era
Two years ago my buddy John McKay and I decided to get serious about reducing the number of ski hills still awaiting our attention.
John and I first started skiing together at Bogus Basin, outside Boise, Idaho, when we were in junior high school together.
John still teaches at Bogus, and we get together once a year to track the wily powder.
This time we decided to challenge the Oregon slopes in a big way by skiing five ski areas in five days.
We met in Bend for a night of good food then hit Mt. Bachelor early. It was a great day with good snow and modest sunshine. Bachelor is the grand old lady of the Oregon ski areas with 3,500 acres of mixed terrain and 3,400 vertical feet of drop. As expert skiers our favorite area is the terrain north of the Rainbow Chair, where there are a lot of really interesting ungroomed hills and dales to explore with great powder between the trees. Another favorite area is the Northwest Territory, with long, and forbiddingly steep, narrow runs.
Day two saw us at Willamette Pass. The Pass is a fun mountain. It is a good family mountain with nice easy runs like Duck Soup on the front side and short black diamond (expert) runs on the back side. We got to enjoy our first ride on the new high speed six-person chairlift that takes you from the lodge to the peak in a few minutes.
Undaunted by our aging knees, we moved on to Hoodoo on day three. Hoodoo is either pretty flat or pretty steep. Like American politics these days, there isn’t a lot of middle ground.
I like taking the grandkids to Hoodoo because we can ride up the chair together, ski partway down together; then while the little kids take the easy way down, I can dive off on one of the black diamond “shortcuts” to the bottom.
It’s a fun place and the new owner, Chuck Shepard, has done a lot to improve the lifts while building a new lodge. Definitely worth investing a day on his slopes.
Moving on to Mt. Hood, we checked in to the Huckleberry Inn at Government Camp. Despite a long, fluid evening lubricating old joints, we greeted the sun at Mt. Hood Meadows.
Meadows is a skiers mountain with good high speed chairs and lots of challenging terrain. It’s a fun place for the young showoffs since there are five black diamond runs right beside the main chair (titled, appropriately, 1 Bowl, 1-1/2 Bowl, 2 Bowl, 3 Bowl, and 4 Bowl.)
The best skiing on the hill is into the Heather Canyon, a double black diamond run. This area used to be out of bounds with a long hike out. In recent years Meadows installed a tiny old chair at the bottom of a long runout that lifts you back to civilization.
On day five, we staggered up to Timberline Lodge. The lodge itself is a historic monument built by the WPA in 1936. The accommodations are charming and the dining is exquisite. The skiing is interesting as much of it is above the timberline.
On a clear day this affords incredible views to the South of the Mt. Jefferson and the Cascade Range. The Miracle Mile is a wonderful wide open snowfield. Timberline does a great job of preparing its terrain park for the young and invincible to jump, flip and crash in.
I don’t know why but for some reason day five proved to be a short day. We adjourned early to the bar to explain to the young sprouts how they too could become true ski bums if they would invest a little more time, effort and dedication to the venture.