Mt. Bachelor

This winter has been one for the books. I set out with the intention to really put more time into skiing this year and I have done pretty well if I may say so myself. Skiing is a real commitment. You don’t just pencil it into your calendar and do it on the way as you are running other errands, you have to put aside an entire day, or days, lug around the equipment and then squeeze every second of your time on the mountain. At the beginning of the year we dreamed up a big road trip down the West Coast to hit as many ski resorts as we could, it was an ambitious plan but not counting the day we got completely snowed out… in California (!) we only managed three days on the slopes. We did learn a lot during this process but also discovered a lot of incredible places we want to go back to and explore more of. One of these is Mount Bachelor. I knew the least about this resort, but after seeing it on a friends Instagram feed I was curious to learn more.

Mt. Bachelor was to be our first stop on our US leg of the trip and we set out for it from Vancouver. It took us about ten hours (winter) driving to get there. Two longer than the google estimate. One reason was we were finishing the drive at night, with low visibility, ice and semis on the road and second was because we took a couple stops along the way to admire the landscape (did you know that the majority of the taller mountains in Oregon are volcanos?!). I had never imagined that winter in Oregon was as beautiful and rich as what we got to see this year. Everywhere you turned you were basically in a Dr. Seuss story.

Normally I am a total planner but because we were driving I thought it would be fine to just take things day by day. The downside of this is if you have a LOT of driving to do and you are trying to get somewhere before the night falls all of a sudden your schedule becomes a lot less flexible then you originally thought. Our sights set on the mountain, we stayed at the closest resort we could find, the Tetherow, in Bend, Oregon. There are no hotels on the mountain itself so Bend is the closest town to crash for the night. Tetherow is a golf resort during the summer but in the winter it turns into the most perfect getaway for snow seekers. It is only a 20 min drive to Mt. Bachelor, it has giant rooms with fireplaces (a must feature on any ski vacation) and big mud rooms to dry off your gear after a full day of powder. And did I mention the bathtub? The property features two restaurants, a gym and an outdoor heated pool and hot tubs. It was the perfect way to start and end our days.

As for Mt. Bachelor, what can I say, I loved every moment of it. The resort is totally retro and I’m obsessed with everything from the chairlifts to the bathrooms to the carpets in the lodges. We didn’t get to explore the interiors as much as we wanted however, because we were too busy zooming from lift to lift trying out as many runs as we could. The chicken that I am, we of course started with the green Marshmallow run, which was the most perfect practice run to get up your confidence and give you a little warm up. As the day progressed however we got up to the very top, for the views and to try Beverly Hills, then to the other side of the mountain for some steeper trails. The staff at Bachelor was fantastic! What I have loved about American resorts so far is the amount of assistance you can get when you are on the mountain. There is a person stationed at every map to offer advice or lead you in the right direction and here we even had people seeking us out to let us know which chairs had the best views. There is something comforting about being in a place for the first time and having that kind of care. The runs were all perfectly groomed and easy to follow, not to mention because we were there during the week we never competed for space with any of the other guests. A big bonus! We can’t wait to come back! xoxo

wearing: sam nyc jacket, erin snow pants, bogner helmet