Abundant snow gives ski industry a lift

Mount Hood ski areas pumped by promise of cold, snowy winter

By Shannon Wells
The Gresham Outlook, Dec 10, 2010, Updated Dec 10, 2010

Those who trekked up to Mount Hood last winter with the intention of snowboarding or skiing at Mt. Hood Skibowl were often greeted by a deceptively encouraging site: a nearly empty parking lot.
Rather than an early snowbird’s dream, those wide-open spaces at the mountain’s oldest and lowest-elevation resort corresponded with bare patches, thin snow cover and a resulting lack of regular visitors.
“It wasn’t our best ski season,” admits Monica Cory, public relations manager at Skibowl in Government Camp. “It was a fluke for unusually low snow accumulation.”
With all its terrain open since the day after Thanksgiving – and La Niña-influenced weather forecasts calling for an unusually cold, wet winter – Mt. Hood Skibowl is poised to counteract last winter’s quiet with a deluge of white powder that started early this fall.
“We’re already seeing it,” Cory says. “There’s great conditions already in the middle of the bowl. It’s gonna be a huge season.”
Let the games begin
Mt. Hood Skibowl’s staff and patrons are not alone in their enthusiasm. The other large resorts on the mountain – Timberline Lodge and Mt. Hood Meadows – also are ramped up for a long, prosperous season of downhill thrills on plentiful powder.
And while the economy may not have perked up enough to make regular lift-ticket purchases as palatable as many would like, Mount Hood resorts offer – from weekday and night specials to relatively inexpensive cross-country skiing – plenty of enticements to make a “staycation” on the 11,249-foot mountain a budget-friendly alternative to long-distance excursions.
Dexter Hill, owner of Hillcrest Ski & Sports, 2506 S.E. Burnside Road, says the forecasted La Niña snow and cold this winter is creating a palpable buzz among skiers and snowboarders – novice, expert and in-between.
“People are feeling a little more secure that there’s going to be more snow,” Hill says.
Offering a range of state-of-the-art skis and boards for sale as well as a $29 rental package covering a board or skis, boots and poles, Hillcrest is in the thick of its typically humming pre-holiday season.
“This is a busy time,” he says, noting the buildup to what is traditionally the season’s first high-volume day. “As far as when people go to the mountain, it’s the day after Christmas. People are done shopping and say, ‘Now it’s time to go have fun.’ ”
Something for everyone

John Tullis, spokesman for Timberline, says the family friendly resort – anchored by its iconic 1930s-era stone lodge planted 6,000 feet above sea level – opened its lower-mountain winter skiing and snowboarding season early on Oct. 28.
As of Thursday, Dec. 9, 173 inches of snow has fallen at Timberline since September, he says, leaving a confidence-building 67-inch base in its wake.
“An early winter snow allowed us to open the lower lifts. We got right through early-season conditions and into ample snow base really quickly,” Tullis says.
An innovation offered this year is the Timberline Parenthood pass, which provides parents of young children a transferable lift ticket. This allows a couple to take turns supervising their kids and hitting the slopes without the expense of buying two individual tickets.
“It’s really resonated with that group,” he says. “The industry calls them ‘lapsed skiers,’ who worry they’ll never take their skis off the hook again” after becoming parents. “This solves that logistical problem.”
Touting the success of the “Mount Hood Fusion Pass” ($499 for teens; $599 for adults), which allows skiers and boarders to switch slopes between Timberline and Skibowl, Tullis characterizes the relationship among Mount Hood’s ski resorts as a “friendly competition.”
“We do have our different niches,” he says. “Skibowl is great, because their strong suit is night skiing. Ours is family skiing with a variety of terrain, late-night skiing and a long season.”
Smooth operator
As with its neighbors to the west, Mt. Hood Meadows started its 43rd season in an encouraging way. Slopes opened Nov. 20, and the expert terrain of Heather Canyon was ready to run by Dec. 4.
“It’s one of the earliest openings of Heather Canyon in our history,” says Dave Tragethon, the resort’s executive director of communications. “We’re very excited about the prospect of so much snow.”
Some of the changes Meadows’ visitors will see this season involve streamlining and intertwining its snow sports services division, which encompasses the ski school, retail shop, high-performance demonstration and boot shops and its race department.
“The purpose is to do a better job getting professional guidance of our professionals to the people who need it most – our guests,” Tragethon says. “Instead of saying ‘Here’s your boots, here’s your skis, now go out on the slopes,’ this will (ensure) there is someone who will be more in tune with their needs. Not only to make their time more enjoyable, but more productive as well.”
Some of these changes include an expansion of night-skiing hours (until 9 p.m.) to Mondays and Tuesdays between Wednesday, Dec. 22, and Sunday, Jan. 2, (excepting Christmas Eve). Skiers and boarders can save $5 by purchasing the $69 daily lift tickets online, and further mitigate the day’s expenses with a $10 food voucher for mid-week visits.
“We’re not so much focused on how many,” Tragethon says. “We want to provide an improved experience so visitors have more to talk about, experience and remember.”
Closer to home
What Mt. Hood Skibowl, which originated with a ski jumping event in the late 1920s, may lack in high-speed lifts and ultra-modern lodge facilities, Cory says, it compensates for in bargain prices ($44 for an all day pass; $26 from 3 p.m. to close), the largest number of black-diamond-rated expert slopes and proximity to the Portland-metro area.
“We haven’t really used it as a slogan,” she says, “but ‘cheaper, steeper, closer’ differentiates our resort from others.”

THINGS TO KNOW

• After weeks of generous high-elevation snowfall, four full-service ski/snowboard areas on Mount Hood — all within a 45-minute drive of Gresham — opened earlier than usual this season.
• Mt. Hood Skibowl, Timberline Lodge and Mt. Hood Meadows are the biggest, but Summit Ski Area at Government Camp has a lift providing access to trails more than a half-mile long. In addition to downhill runs, Summit offers 15 kilometers of Nordic, or cross-country, skiing trails.
• Turned off by the lift ticket and equipment prices or the chaotic clamor of downhill ski resorts? Nordic skiing is available on countless marked and mapped trails on and around Mount Hood.
Some contacts
• Mt. Hood Skibowl: skibowl.com, 503-222-2695
• Mt. Hood Meadows: skihood.com, 503-337-2222
• Timberline Lodge: timberlinelodge.com, 503-272-3158 (tickets); 1-800-547-1406 (reservations)
• Summit Ski Area: 503-272-0256.
Cross-country trails on Mount Hood: www.gorp.com, or www.trails.com.
• For a National Weather Service forecast specialized for Mount Hood, visit www.forecast.weather.gov

Tags: abundant snow, early ski season, ski industry, ski info

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