Thanks to all for the great advice in advance of a great (Wednesday to Wednesday) week at Mt Bachelor, just concluded. Four out of six days of skiing there were bluebird days, and the summit open for three of them! The house we rented in Sunriver was perfect for the job, too.
In the saga of the never-ever skiers, that didn’t quite go as I thought, lol. One was my old college buddy, and the other his younger brother. Younger brother purchased (in advance, for both of them) private lessons for the first afternoon, an all-day lesson for Day Two, and a morning lesson for Day Three. About $1,500 worth. It was my hope that on the afternoon of Day Three, they could join my cousin Wayne and I on some greens or even some easy blues.
Not so much. Younger brother didn’t finish their first private lesson on the afternoon of Day One, announced the next morning he wouldn’t be skiing again, and flew back to the East Coast on Day Three (three more days on his ticket and a full day and a half of unused private lessons), leaving his brother to fend for himself. Never-ever college buddy gamely did the morning lesson on Day Two, skipped that day’s afternoon lesson, and he and his brother went up to Bend, returning to pick us up at the end of the day. Day Three (this past Saturday), younger brother Ubered back up to Redmond airport and left for home, and older brother chauffeured us to and from the mountain and hung at the house (chauffeuring becoming his role the rest of the trip). Sunday (Day Four), the same, with some shopping in Bend (his family wanted a lot of Blockbusters memorabilia from the last store in the country). Day Five (Monday), he returned and did a morning lesson (his last), and then went back up to Bend for a massage, before returning to the mountain to pick us up at the end of the day. With all the unused lessons between them, he could have gone Tuesday (our last ski day) for another lesson, but didn’t, even though he felt like he was progressing, even though he would like to be invited again (must have been the high-end bottles of bourbon, lol). Other than the lessons at the base area, he never really was on the mountain.
On the FLIP side of that coin, Wayne and I skied bell-to-bell five of the six days, but only put in a half-day Monday out of self-preservation in _extremely_ low visibility. At one point, on the cat track leading from the Cloudchaser area, I skied straight into a snow wall along its side when the trail turned and I didn’t — came out of both skis and face-planted, lol. Time to call it a day! Hit the bar and waited for a 1;30 extraction, where we returned to our really comfy Sunriver rental and its private hot tub — the three of us chilled the rest of the day with a great playlist to listen to, some great beer (and bourbon …), and spliffage.
Loved the mountain. None of the altitude issues we‘d have had in Telluride or Breck. Conditions couldn’t have been much better (especially when our basis of comparison is the Poconos in Pennsylvania!). We started each day on the Cloudchaser side, then worked our way over. We only ever did the Northwest lift on the first day — it was burning up too much ski time riding it, lol.
Wayne is the helmetless one.
