Mt. Bachelor, OR Conditions Report| January 2, 2014

Clear skies with wisps of small lenticular clouds dominated the weather yesterday at Mt. Bachelor.  The forecast was saying it’d be cloudy by noon and would start snowing at 4pm with an expected 2-4 inches overnight.

As AWESOME as this would be for Bachelor which has not gotten snow in a bit, it sadly never became cloudy and definitely did not start snowing.  That being said, it was an absolute stunningly beautiful day.

The lenticulars augmented the beauty of the vast volcanic landscape and as the day progressed, it warmed up to almost pseudo-spring conditions.

Sounds great and all… and it was, for the most part.  The one downside was that the off-piste terrain might have been easier to ski with ice skates rather than the powder skis I have.  It was literally bullet proof ice… remnants of an ice storm that rolled through the area sometime in the last few weeks.  It was a quick lesson though; all it took was one adventurous run through ungroomed terrain to realize my terrible mistake.  So naturally, we stuck to the groomers.

And they were GREAT!  The groomers were soft, sugary and FAST, at least in the morning.  Skiing under the Pine Marten lift was race heaven when it wasn’t too crowded.  Many trenches were carved both from Tele and Alpine turns while the adrenaline flowed free. 

The terrain park was a bit crowded because of the confinement of crowds onto groomed runs.  There are mainly rails and other fun features, but there is a single jump.  It’s a nicely made jump, but sooooo many people have hit it that there is a trench in the middle of the lip where most take flight.  Hopefully this will be fixed by tomorrow.

Overall, it was an extremely fun day.  Cant wait to do it all again tomorrow.  There is still 1-2″ forecasted overnight, so we’ll see how that plays out.