Oregon: It's North America's Longest Ski Season -
Jagged peaks, cozy lodges, local access, and uncrowded slopes provide Oregon skiers with some great skiing year-round. We're talking the longest ski season in North America.
Oregon’s local hills and destination resorts are almost a secret ready for discovery. Mount Hood, always a hotspot for summer training for national ski teams from across the globe, including the U.S. Ski Team, is actually two resorts.
Mount Hood Ski Bowl, just 52 miles east of Portland, is Oregon’s closest ski area. It is also North America’s largest night skiing spot. One drawback from its location, however, are often large weekend crowds and slow lift lines. The good thing is the lifts stay open until 10 p.m. Ski Bowl's base elevation of 3,600 feet gets more than its share of so-called “Cascade Concrete” – powder with heavy water content. It’s at its best when you can get away midweek.
The second Hood – Mt. Hood Meadows – is 67 miles from Portland and 180 degrees in snow. Meadows’ 2,150 acres are covered with some of the best snow in the Pacific Northwest, rolling from beginner runs to steep challenges (the vertical is 2,777 feet).
Cooper Spur’s tame weather provides sunny days, but less snow. The area was first developed as a ski jumping hill, but the family area is perfectly safe for kids who want to keep their skis on the ground. Parents can pretty much watch all of the action from the deck of the day lodge.
The largest area in Oregon is Mt Bachelor, in the central part of the state. This is a versatile playground for skiers and riders. Seven of 11 chairs are high-speed quads, to get you up and arcing without wait time on Bachelor’s 3,683 acres. Other great selling points are fluffy, light snow, Flextime lift tickets, so you only pay for the runs you take rather than buying a daily lift ticket, and a decidedly low-key atmosphere. Bachelor, without a glitzy village, but a real city nearby (Bend), makes a family ski vacation affordable.
Hoodoo Ski Bowl, another Central Oregon ski area and the state’s second oldest, also shares great snow conditions minus the crowds. You can see Mount Jefferson, Three Fingered Jack, and the Three Sisters Wilderness Area from Hoodoo's highest peak.
Anthony Lakes’ 900 vertical feet and 21 runs makes for an intimate but still exciting area. Located in northeast Oregon’s Elkhorn Range of the Blue Mountains, the dry temperatures and high base elevation give the resort spectacular snow and even more impressive views.
You can get to Willamette Pass from Eugene in under an hour. Though predominantly a family resort, its long steep slopes draw racers and speed skiers from around the globe. Amateurs can sign up for recreational speedskiing clinics. Willamette has one of the highest elevations in the Northwest, blessing the area with more than 350 inches of (mostly) dry powder annually. The area has a unique tiered ticking system: Pay by the hour, the vertical foot, or by day.
Mt. Ashland takes its cue from Shakespeare. Cradled in the majestic Siskiyou Mountains, eight miles from the town of Ashland and its summertime Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the resort pays homage the award-winning bard. Eighty-five percent of the mountain caters to intermediates to experts on runs with names like Juliet, Circe, and Tempest. The snow is mostly light and dry thanks to what Oregonians call the rain shadow effect of the coastal mountain range which cools incoming Pacific storms. Try to visit in February when bards and minstrels come out to perform.
Timberline Lodge is still going strong when the sun is at its apex. Visitors can ski and board year-round at one of Oregon’s oldest resorts. Race and freestyle teams, clubs, and camps from all over the world make Timberline Ground Zero in the summer. Timberline, 55 miles outside of Portland, started as a lodge first, then a resort.
The National Historic Landmark, built by hand during the Great Depression, is Oregon’s only ski-in/ski-out resort. Remember The Shining with Jack Nicholson? Timberline Lodge was the location, but the moviemakers made it look a lot less inviting than it really is. Many guests come back year after year, bringing their kids and then their grandkids.
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