Mt. Bachelor Focus Group

Bachelor is holding a series of meetings with small groups of the skiing public in an effort to improve their operation.

I'll be in one Wednesday Aug. 26th. 

Any ideas on what you'd like to see there?

I'll be pushing for a public access race course, and of course, the banning of snowboarders.

How about a late season & a cheap Spring pass.

Thanks.  They already have a nice $100 spring pass. I cleaned up on that one when I came to town after Fernie closed.  We're going to ask for a later season, even if it means a second season pass required for everyone.  A good discount for winter pass holders would help.

$100 sounds good, now just keep the lifts running till June or July like the old days.
Thanks,
JF

Skiiing until July 4th like the good ol' days.

No question in my mind that curtailment of Bachelor's best-in-North-America spring season is the biggest beef.

As a constructive suggestion they need to get some national ski teams in there for training as a means of getting the late season close to a breakeven basis.  There is way more terrain available than at Mt. Hood, including enough for DH.   Mammoth pursues this business, and for them the length of season is quite variable (roughly 30% Memorial Day close, 30% July 4 and the rest in-between).  Bachelor has more snow consistently in June over a longer vertical, should be attractive to the race teams if they would get out there and do some marketing to them.

Curtailing Mt. Bachelor's best-North-America spring season is definitely the biggest beef.

As a constructive suggestion, they need to get some national ski teams in there to keep the late season close to break even.  Bachelor has way more terrain available than Mt. Hood, including enough for FIS Downhill.  Mammoth pursues this business diligently, despite a more variable season (30% Memorial Day close, 30% July 4, the rest in between).  Mt. Bachelor has a more consistent June snowpack over more vertical; should be more attractive than anywhere else to the race teams.   So Bachelor management needs to get out there with some aggressive marketing to the national teams.

Absolutely keep the mountain open longer!  As a skier who will hit the slopes as long as skiing is available, I have skied Mammoth in July.  I am old enough to recall skiing Bachelor in June, and now drive from Seattle to Bend to hit Bachelor when they close mid-May each year.  I would come back in June if they stayed open that late, there was tons of snow left this last May when they closed.  The spring ski pass Bachelor offers is an excellent deal.  

Excellent point by Tony that Bachelor should try and get ski teams to come in the summer. Timberline just doesn't have the terrain to make it worthwhile for me to visit in the summer.  And Bend's economy could use a boost from keeping the mountain open later, if economically feasible.    

We definitely brought up this point, and they are going to try and get some camps etc to keep it going.  I remember them staying open until July just out of pride, but in recent years they have been more bottom line oriented.

The US ski team was looking to have a 120 skier camp this year, but in the end only brought 20.  I'm pushing them to broaden their marketing.

I gave the new manager a couple a photos....Bachelor on June 23. 2008 and Hood a few days later.  All those skiers are from various camps, and they were spending most of their day in liftlines.  Hopefully we can get some of those skiers here and everyone will be happier. 

Those 2 pics say it all.  Someone needs to light a fire under Mt. Bachelor management.  For those unfamiliar with Mt. Bachelor, the second pic is from the bottom of the mountain; the snow only gets deeper as you ascend the 3,000 feet to the top of Summit in the background.

Lots of good points. Glad you were able to participate in one of the focus groups. As you note, last year we brought in camps for the first time in many years, and next year we hope to attract more. We also reached out to ski shops and ski towns elsewhere to visit late season when we are 1 of a handful of remaining open areas.

One item of note in this discussion that might be different than 5-20+ years ago is weather patterns. I can't comment on all years, but this past season the week after we closed, we got into a rainy pattern where it rained nearly every day in June at the mtn. Not good for rationalizing the late ops... Is it a climate shift or a one year deal ya think..?

AK

AK---

I've had graduate level training in meteorology and climate science.
I don't need any of that to know that one data point does not make a trend.

I think the snow will be there.  Run the lifts, and they will come.

I used to coach at an adult advanced ski clinic at Bachelor for a week every May in the late 80's, probably similar to the ESA events.  We would bring an average of 20 skiers each year & stay at the Inn of the 7th Mountain, & also spend money in town.  The mountain treated us great & provided gates & hill space for race training on a couple of those days.  We always had a great time, & great feedback from our guests who probably wouldn't have skied Bachelor without us.  We also had great conditions, usually some powder thrown in with spring conditions & always great coverage.  Spring is a struggle between winter & summer, the weather is unpredictable.  June in Utah this year was an anamoly, record rains in June.  I wouldn't call it a trend.

How about a post season ESA at Bachelor?

JF

Funny you should say that. I have graduate met schooling too. Obviously one year does not make a trend or climate anything. Curious to hear if those who have been paying attention long term can comment on if June rainy season in higher elevatons has been typical in last 5-10 years or just this last year?

Of course the snow stays, but running lifts in a month of rain when our improvements/maintenance are funded by our annual proceeds is not a foregone successful move. A fun one for the folk who would ski on the handful of nice days, granted..

How many enotecas/tasting rooms in between mountain and town?

I can't remember a June like the last one in the 15 years I've been around here .  I've seen some snowy ones, but seldom much rain.  I do know that personal opinions on weather history are usually wrong though, and that actual statistics are much better.

No one has more statistics than Tony Crocker, who calls Bachelor "the best spring skiing on the continent"  Hopefully he will chime in some more.
http://webpages.charter.net/tcrocker818/

Here's what it looked like this year on May 13th, a few days before before closing.  Max_501 and I showed another bear around, who called it "his best day of the season"

.  

Let's get the word out, and keep the lifts running, rather than speculating on how weather might change. 

Edited by newfydog - 9/2/09 at 8:28pm

First reaction is that the Mammoth locals could not recall a year with so much rain in May/June.  It did not particularly impede skiing because the rain was usually in mid to late afternoon after the area closed at 1 or 2PM.

Here is the Crater Lake long term precip data: http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMONtpre.pl?orcrat

Note that June is historically the driest month of the year at 0.78 inch average.

Handful of nice days? Hardly, unless Bachelor is much cloudier than Mammoth.  Whistler is certainly cloudier than either and it manages to operate well into summer.

I am totally convinced that Mt. Bachelor has the best May/June ski conditions in North America by a substantial margin.  And I've been skiing Mammoth in that time frame since 1978.

Seems we have a few Met.Ob. grads here. I also minored in Air Tech. I would like to take some late Spring race/training clinics at Bachelor instead of spending my money at Hood. Keep it open AK.

as you will note, i am a new member - and dont want to hijack this thread... so pls advise if i should re post. We are considering a move to Bend from the east coast.  one of the decided attractions is mt bachelor, but we wont have a chance to ski it before we need to make a decision. Through the research i have done, i was a bit surprised on the negativity as to variety of terrain, specifically lack of expert stuff.  I would appreciate your candid views on the ability of the mountain to entertain a family of skiers, aged 6 to 40 for "a lifetime" (more or less).  Specifically:
- what would you compare the steep stuff - that is normally open - to on rocky mtn resorts?
- are there bumps consistently or just periodically?
- any cliffs / "extreme" terrain?
- is the challenging stuff restricted to the summit or backside and is that stuff rarely open?

Bottom line, i am sure the mtn will provide more than enough for enjoyable family skiing.  But, I am curious if there is enough where an "expert" skier can "pound it out" for a full day and feel like he or she can challenge and exhaust him or herself should the feeling strike....

again, please excuse the tangent, but looking for some timely advice given the decision we are confronting, understanding this is just one element of the overall picture, but at the same time, more information is better than less.

Thanks very much.

Bachelor has a reputation as "Mt. Flature".  It is not undeserved.

That said, some of the best days of skiing in my life have been there.  (I haved lived in the East, the Alps, the Colorado Rockies, the Canadian Rockies, and raced for years)  Super tree skiing, wide open spaces, long season.  It is the perfect local mountain....any bigger and it would be a hassle for parking etc, any smaller it would get a bit boring.

The bumps get drowned in the deep snow.  The only real steeps require a bit of a hike, and aren't consistantly open early in the year.  The adventures on the backside are not always open, but there is lots of room for stupidly high speed cruising, something many big resorts don't have.  Hardly ever a liftline.  Good nordic center.
 
It is 22 minutes from town on a straight and easy road, and we can bike, hike, fish and paddle nearly year round out of town. 

It snowed up there yesterday.

thanks, much appreciated and continued input very welcome