Mt. Bachelor, OR Official Opening day Conditions Report: Sunshine and Powder Pockets

Mt. Bachelor is now open for the 2015/2016 winter season. While there is some fresh powder on the ground, it is early season and there are still a lot of obstacles. 

The Pine Marten Lift had some good powder pockets in the trees and on the sides of some runs. However, everything above the treeline is windblown. The ice is skiable off the groomed, but it’s less than ideal. To put it in perspective, it’s icy enough near the top that even snowmobiles won’t leave a track off the groomed.

Mt. Bachelor needs a lot more snow to get additional lifts open. Things are looking pretty rocky up on Summit.

The best powder skiing is on the east side. There are still icy windblown spots on Sunrise, but there are pockets of powder in the trees and even on the runs near the bottom.

The groomers are also skiing nicely. The terrain park off of Skyliner is starting to shape up, however there isn’t really enough snow to build anything too big. The best groomers right now are usually off of Pine Marten. Thunderbird, Leeway, and Olympian are in good shape and even have some good packed powder on the sides.

All together, it was a great opening day and a great start to Oregon’s ski season. There is still some untracked out there if you’re willing to hunt it down and there will hopefully be many more storms to come this winter.