Fresh snow had fallen across the high peaks a few days earlier, and Dan and I were interested in getting some October turns, so we made plans to head over to Mt Bachelor and see what was up. We decided to head out early, given the forecast showed a 20% chance of showers. Checking the webcams for Timberline on the way over, we were stoked on choosing Bachelor as it was raining buckets on Hood. The upper mountain looked good as we pulled into the parking lot, and by 8:30, we were hiking up the hill…..
We worked our way up Coffee run and made decent time to mid-mountain. The views to the northwest of the Three Sisters were scenic, with a small lenticular hanging over South. Fall was definitely in the air.
Before long we reached the patch, and it was looking pretty good, especially compared to last year. It looked so good in fact, that we decided to take a run before going any further…
In short time we hiked back up and contemplated our next move. Looking up at the Cirque Bowl, it looked like the snow up higher was pretty sweet, albeit a bit thin in places. We decided it was worth it, left beers in the snow on the patch, and started hiking.
We decided to boot directly up the west side of the bowl, and made short time to the top. It got fairly steep in a couple of places, but Sadie didn’t seem to mind and soon we were standing on the summit enjoying the views north to the Three Sisters and Broken Top.
Dropping in, the snow was sweet. It was somewhere between powder and mashed potatoes, but the steep slope angle and smooth snow was easily the best turns of the day.
We enjoyed great turns down through the pinch point in the bowl, where the snow depth lessened and we were wary of rock sharks. Once through the pinch point, more fun turns followed…
We milked turns down to the bottom of the bowl, then made a short hike over rocks to our waiting beers. There’s pretty much nothing better than enjoying a cold one after skiing a great run on fresh snow. After our beers were finished, we made another lap on the patch, followed by turns on another patch lower down the hill…
Back at the road, we hiked down the mountain, enjoying the great views like the one in the picture below. Lower down on Coffee run however, we made the decision to try to do some more “skiing.” Probably not the smartest decision given the snow depth was somewhere around 3 inches, but we still had fun. I’m not sure my base had that much fun though….
Back at the car, both of us were stoked on the day. The turns were excellent and the weather was great. Just another day in the Oregon cascades.
November 17, 2016
was just reading your email on the
November 4, 2016 – Mt Washington, North Bowl Post. Was going to leave comment about how epic that trip was. I see it was password protected. Not familar with WP blogs with passwords. just wondered what’s up. thxs
November 18, 2016
Hey Dave, thanks for the reply. Nothing’s up, just passwording some of the volcano posts since I’m seeing lots of traffic out there these days and therefore trying to keep my impact on that to a minimum (plus keep the grief from my touring partners to a minimum as well:)