Portland area Mags: where to ski?

[belgian]

I'll be moving down to Forest Grove next year to attend Pacific University. So in light of that, which Hood resort is the best? Meadows looks like the winner from what I can tell but locals know best, also is there a regular bus or shuttle from Portland up to any of the areas as I don't know if I'll be bringing a car to school with me. Any other info on stuff to do down there would be awesome because I've never spent any time in Portland before.

[Buster Highmen]

Meadows may have the most consistent snow and terrain, but their management has always sucked. Expect cultivated stoopidity.

Ski Bowl r00ls when they have snow, but's it's actually below Government Camp. At least the money you save can go to a set of oilskins.

Ski elsewhere than Hood if you can. White Pass or Hoodoo, Batchy even

As far as Portland, you have to go to Powell's Books. OMSI is fun a few times. Then there's Reed. Heh.

[girlski0912]

Don't waste your money on Hood...they are expensive and overrated with crappy flat terrain and crowds. Ski Bowl is where everyone has been pushing me and when they have snow the terrain is supposed to rule. Not to mention that pass prices are silly cheap, the night skiing is great (they light up the whole hill), and it's closer to P-town.

[basom]

ski bowl crushes it. i had a meadows pass for three years in college and a ski bowl pass for two. in 96-97 and 97-98 i think i had more days (nights really, they put lights in the gnar so you can do real skiing at night) at ski bowl than meadows. i dont think the bussing situation is going to be in your favor.

[Platinum Pete]

As a portland maggot i concur with all that has been said, but will add that the $99 spring pass at Meadows has proven to be a helluva deal this year. There is fun to be had at Meadows, but I can't imagine making it my only hill for the year again. SkiBowl has the goods and the right attitude.

[FLYINN]

There is a bus that leaves from GI Joes in Lake Oswego. I think it is like 15 bucks it goes to meadows. There are other stops too (not sure where). About ski bowl...great terrain, but when it is barely snowing at meadows (which happens a lot) it is raining at ski bowl for sure. But they do have the best night skiing around hands down. Timberline has its benefits too.

[Camilo]

Forest Grove sucks, good thing you'll have a car. You can drive the 40-60 minutes into Portland and find a carpool crew to head up to the mountain. Unless you have an entire weekend, it's not worth the money to go to Bachelor or Hoodoo. You'll be driving more than you ski.

Like everyone has said: Ski Bowl has the best terrain and Meadows is more consistent but more crowded.

[bossass]

Forest Grove sucks, good thing you'll have a car. You can drive the 40-60 minutes into Portland and find a carpool crew to head up to the mountain. Unless you have an entire weekend, it's not worth the money to go to Bachelor or Hoodoo. You'll be driving more than you ski.

Like everyone has said: Ski Bowl has the best terrain and Meadows is more consistent but more crowded.

If you avoid meadows on the weekends it's not bad for crowds at all.

[belgian]

Thank you much for the help. Looks like I'll be taking the car and getting a skibowl pass.

Forest Grove sucks

Yeah I know. Visiting the campus was rather downheartening but oh well, I'm looking forward to school and Portland is only a little ways away. Probably transfering out after one year anyway (Pacific is $$$$$$$).

[ninjabirdman]

i personally don't think forest grove -> bachelor for skiing sounds that bad, but i guess i'm jaded from 4+ hours from bay area to tahoe.

i'll second the night skiing at ski-bowl to. the couple of precious days where there is fresh dry snow there and they light up the mountain . . . some of my favorite skiing has been there at night (and $20 ticket too)

[connersw]

Every one's pretty much already hit on the differences between the "resorts." One thing that wasn't mentioned though is that Meadows passes have gotten drastically cheaper over the last couple years w/ their 4x$400 deal. That being said, I still told them to fuck off this year and took my money elsewhere due to their management. I've been making the drive to Bachelor most weeks, and I'm debating whether I want to do that again next year.

I live in Hillsboro (one town east of Forest Grove), and I'm up for car pooling if you're interested. My standard climbing/skiing buddy just took a gig down in AZ so I could used the company. I keep my days off Thu/Fri to avoid the crowds if that'll work with your class schedule.

[bossass]

Thank you much for the help. Looks like I'll be taking the car and getting a skibowl pass.

Have fun in the rain.

Connersw: What's your deal with management? This year they extended the season by two weeks, and later on by an additional month. They have a $99 unlimited spring pass, which began in like March, which was pretty rad for those without passes.

Yeah, they don't always get stuff open as fast as other resorts, and their mid-week pipe grooming is sometimes non-existant, but other than that I don't think Meadows is any different than the 20 other western resorts I've skied.

[shmerham]

Sneak to the Peak. Shawnee Peak.

Oh, sorry. Wrong Portland.

[belgian]

I keep my days off Thu/Fri to avoid the crowds if that'll work with your class schedule.

If that'll work with my class schedule then for sure, sounds like a great idea. But class registration is still a few weeks away and I'm going to try my best to get a job, so I'll PM you when it gets closer to winter.

Have fun in the rain.

Oh well, I'm used to it having skiied at Alpental the last 3 seasons. Besides, if I stay in the area I'll have plenty of time to check out the other resorts.


Anyway, thanks for the input again.

[Platinum Pete]

Have fun in the rain.

Connersw: What's your deal with management? This year they extended the season by two weeks, and later on by an additional month. They have a $99 unlimited spring pass, which began in like March, which was pretty rad for those without passes.

Yeah, they don't always get stuff open as fast as other resorts, and their mid-week pipe grooming is sometimes non-existant, but other than that I don't think Meadows is any different than the 20 other western resorts I've skied.

Dave Riley the VP/GM of Meadows is an unpopular guy and I've never really looked into why. I can imagine the Hood River locals and the "everything is black and white" environmentalists are none to keen on his moves to join Cooper Spur with Meadows via a tram and lift system which would create absurd amounts of great terrrain and be vastly under utilized by the areas skiers. That area all drains down to the Columbia via the Hood River. I have no idea about how he treats his employees, if he tips well, beats handicapped kids, steals from churches, or rapes chihuahuas - but somethig has got a lot of folks down on him.

[altasnob]

I think part of the hatred of Meadows is that they symbolize the corporate ski culture that the generally liberal, pseudo-communist Portland population despises. Thier tickets and passes are overpriced, they've installed several new high speed quads that don't really expand terrain but instead just cause runs to get tracked out faster, and the constantly overagerate snow conditions on thier web page/snow line (or simply don't fess up when its raining). They'd probably have a couple of golf courses and Vail-esque village up there if the land wasn't leased from the Forest Service. The same complaints can be made of Crystal up here in Washington. That said, Meadows has some decent terrain if you know where to look and I've always thought it was one of the better cliff dropping areas around.

[cj001f]

I think part of the hatred of Meadows is that they symbolize the corporate ski culture

Symbolize? They are corporate ski culture, bu they don't have the terrain, snow, or ski experience to back the attitude up. Couple that with an Alex Cushing attitude to the environment, some megalomania in GM office (I'm sure y'all will love the future of govy) and a history of snubbing local groups and you've got some animosity to deal with.

[Verde]

If you get tired of the Hood areas and want to ski some nice trees, head to Willamette Pass.

[extreeski]

I had 20 untracked, no lift line runs at Hoodoo this year. (18 inches of blower pow.)

Ski Bowl is great.... Plus, the easy access to some of the best terrain up at hood.

[connersw]

Connersw: What's your deal with management? This year they extended the season by two weeks, and later on by an additional month. They have a $99 unlimited spring pass, which began in like March, which was pretty rad for those without passes.

There's a laundry list, and most of them have been touched on already.

The Cooper Spur expansion was one of my first interactions with Riley. I was more of an observer than an activist, but threatening to destroy Tilly Jane trail made me attend a couple of the meetings. I'm not so much the "pseudo-communist," environmentalist Portlander, but I think that area is historic and unique to Hood. I've had a lot of great times touring in that area and racking out at Tilly Jane cabin so I'd hate to see it go away. The pompous attitude Meadow's took really rubbed me the wrong way.

Additionally, like cj001f said, they have this attitude with out the resources to back it up. Everyone from lifties to parking lot attendants think that it's Vail. Yet, they don't provide any of the services. Terrain is constantly closed that should be open. Parking lots aren't being plowed until guests arrived. It's ridiculous. I've had quite a few alpine starts up Hood where you can see the snow-cats at Timberline shining their lights and hard at work. There is no movement what so ever at Meadows until day break.

Two years ago when they put in Vista, I sent a couple of emails to them questioning the decision on spending that much money to put in a lift to no where. Of course, I never got any response. The only thing I got was more media brochures claiming that this will provide access to areas typically closed when Cascade can't open. I questioned this considering the placement of the upper tower on such a high exposed ridge, but I waited for the season to open to find out the truth. Sure enough, if Cascade was closed, 90% of the time Vista wasn't turning either. I then sent more emails asking about this, and, again, I got no response.

The final straw came towards the end of last season. After the miserable snow fall the PNW had last year, we finally got some decent stuff at the end. It was a blue bird day, no wind, and it was 11:00 with Cascade still closed. When I asked patrol when it would open, I was given a rash of attitude and excuses. As I pressed harder, I was told "if you don't like it, go ski some place else." That customer service attitude just pushed me over the edge, so that's what I decided to do.

Still, they had an opportunity to make it right. Since I was a season pass holder, I was still on their distro list for media mailings. Every time I got something asking me to renew my pass, I would send a reply addressing my issues with the resort. Never profane and always professional. Twice, I sent something directly to Riley. Honestly, if they would have just given me some management BS rhetoric, it still might have made a difference. Something along the lines of: "sorry for your experience, we're working to make it better, blah, blah, blah." But instead, they completely ignored me and never once responded. It's obvious that I'm their worst enemy--a season pass holder that skis multiple days per week and doesn't eat in the guest lodge--so they have no need to bring my business back.

I even broke down and gave them one more chance this year. Due to some work meetings, I only had one day that week to ski and not enough time or energy to make it to Bachelor. I drove up to Ski Bowl, but Upper Bowl was closed due to coverage. So I drove on further only to be stuck in stand still traffic on Hwy 35. The upper lot had filled, but they didn’t bother to plow the HRM lot so traffic was stopped for over a mile waiting to get in. After waiting for 45-minutes without moving, I gave up, turned around, and drove the 2 hrs back home.

Now, it comes down to a matter of cost and convenience vs principle. In addition to the longer drive, it's $80-$100 in gas round trip to Bachelor. Plus, I often spend the night down there to ski 2-days in a row. That's usually another $50 if I don't camp. I really like Ski Bowl, but with snow is so inconsistent there, buying their pass is a huge gamble.