Mt. Bachelor Skiing and Snowboarding
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OSU Mt. Bachelor Page
This page is for all students and staff to learn about the wonderful riding at Mt. Bachelor and post their experiences from one of the best places to ride on the West Coast. This page will give you great detail about where the best places to ride on the mountain are, whether you are an extreme free rider or you just love to ride the parks all day. You can also find a place where you can add your personal experiences from your trips to Mt. Bachelor. Finally, the hope of this page is for students and staff to post trips that they will be taking to Mt. Bachelor so all OSU students can experience what Mt. Bachelor has to offer. If you want to know more about Mt. Bachelor or you just want to know the ticket prices.
Free Riding
With 11 chair lifts at Mt. Bachelor it can be a confusing place to find the best powder runs on a great day. There are four main chairs and numerous great places to get the best powder and great free riding. The first place that is more than worth mentioning is the Northwest Express. This lift is a recent addition to Mt. Bachelor and is by far the longest chair on the mountain, stretching over one mile in length. Once reaching the top of the lift choose either left or right no matter which way you go you will find fresh tracks. Some of the best powder fields on the mountain can be found in the Northwest territory. Turn right off the lift and head as far out as you dare. On a good snow day the powder is amazing.
Mt. Bachelor like most mountains is notorious for having its windy days. Windy days usually cause a number of the lifts that reach the top of mountain to close because the winds are so high. This is a shame because these are the best powder days, don’t fear there are many places to go on the mountain during these days. The first would be Outback Express. Here is where you can find all the wind lips and great tree skiing. Outback, like Northwest gives you some of the best free riding Mt. Bachelor has to offer. Second, on the list for windy days is Rainbow chair. Don’t be fooled by the name, this is the local special. Rainbow chair is often avoided because it is not a high speed chair. What this means is that you have to wait an extra five minutes on the chair (not in line) to get the best tracks on the mountain. A suggestion on this chair could be to get off and go to the left, traverse over one or two chutes and then ride down. Watch for the boundary line or you will end up hiking out a couple miles.
Finally, the best free ridding on Mt. Bachelor can be done on the Summit Express. Whether you like dropping cornices or you like to get those mile long runs, the Summit is where you want to be riding. Cow’s Face is to the left once you get off the chair. This run offers a lot of steep terrain and after a good dumping you can find some serious wind lips and long powder runs. Going to the right off the chair will lead you on a small hike. The hike will lead you to the Bowl. Here you will find 20 to 30 foot cornices which lead into the largest bowl on the mountain. Finally, the Backside. It is every locals dream to see the sign in the operating booth that says, “Backside Open.” The reason for this is that Backside is rarely open and when it is there is so much snow back there you don’t know what to do with yourself. A suggestion is to go over a few chutes and then ride down and traverse to the right at the same time. Although it might look tempting to go straight down on the backside you will eventually find yourself on a hellish get-back-trail. All of the places mentioned are some of the most fun free riding at Mt. Bachelor.
Parks, Pipes and Rails
Mt. Bachelor has some of the premier parks in Oregon and on the West Coast. Mt. Bachelor held the Chevy Trucks U.S. Open Olympic qualifier for 2006. Mt. Bachelor has four parks ranging from beginner to advance and has one Super pipe. All the parks are a combination of rails and jumps.
Superpipe
The half-pipe at Mt. Bachelor is a world class pipe. If you want to ride pipe early in the season you will probably be out of luck. It usually takes until late December for the pipe to be completed. It takes time to build up a large enough snow base, and it also takes a lot of time to shape and cut the pipe. The pipe is 400 feet long and cut by the world class cutter Pat Malendoski.
Terrain parks
There are three Terrain parks at Mt. Bachelor. They are the Air Chamber, Slopestyle Arena and the iPark. The Air chamber is the main park, which takes up a whole run on the Skyliner chair. The Slopestyle Arena is located under the Pine Marten chair and is where all the contests take place. The iPark is the intermediate jump park. Below are a list of jumps and rails in each park.
Air Chamber
Butter Box 20 ft & 35 ft double take-off, 25 ft & 45 ft double take-off, Hip Jump, 30 ft tabletop, Rainbow rail, Street rail, Triple Fun Boxes, C-Box, Ladder Box, Double Barrel rail, Leslee Olson rail, Hip Jump, 40ft & 20 ft double take-off, double rollers, Hip Jump.
Slopestyle
Picnic Tables, 25 ft step-down, 35 ft & 20 ft double take-off, 25 ft & 15ft double take-off, 40 ft & 20 ft double take-off, Street rail, Flat Bar rail, 20 ft, 40 ft, Hip triple take-off, Ladder Box, Fun Box.
iPark
20 ft tabletop, 25 ft step-down, 5 more 15 ft tabletops
Dixon Rec.
Dixon Rec Center takes trips to Mt.Hood Meadows, it is a cheap and easy way to get to the mountain safely and on time. Transportation is provided by OSU and loads at approximately 5:30am and arrives home at 7:00pm. For more infomation go to Dixon Rec.
