October 3, 2025 – Mt Bachelor Patches

The long awaited month of October was finally here. Why long awaited? Well, it meant 30 years of TAY for Dan (and 21 for Joe). The trouble was, there wasn’t nearly a lick of snow to be found anywhere in the PNW. The Palmer patch on Mt Hood was looking pretty anemic, but I had a suspicion that the patches on Mt Bachelor were holding, so we decided to head east in search of some elusive early fall turns.

We met early at Dan’s house, and loaded into the Tesla to drive over on electric power, making good time up highway 58 and then up the Cascades Lakes highway. Pulling off the highway and onto the access road to the mountain, I could see some patches up high and we were in business. After plugging in and shouldering our packs, we started off on the trail leading the way up the hill.

After a short bit on the trail, we exited stage left and headed up one of the steep runs to take a more direct line to the mid-mountain. Along the way, I found an old ski pole basket that was probably 75 years old or more. Of course, I had to take a picture…

We made good time up the hill on the crisp fall morning, and before long we were hiking the road/trail that led to the Cirque bowl patch. South Sister was looming in the distance and had a coat of white above 8,000 feet.

Eventually, we walked by the north patch and then the rope tow patch, both of which looked decent and would provide some nice turns if we chose to ski them on the way back. I stopped to snap a couple pictures, including the shots below of Dan looking on as well as one of just the patch itself…

As we made our way up to the Rope Tow, I was pretty stoked to see how good the Cirque patch was looking. It was quite full, and reminded me of my first October turns here back in 2015. We wasted little time, and switched over to ski boots, hiked the patch, and dropped in for a first lap!

Dan was a little behind us, so Joe and I started hiking back up while Dan was getting his ski boots on, and we waited for him at the top of the patch on our second lap. 

The skies lightened up a bit for our second lap, and I dropped in first and ripped some really nice corn about halfway down the patch, and then stopped to get a few pictures of Dan earning his 360th month of consecutive turns.

We stopped briefly on the way back up to grab a snack, and it was also time to crack open my beer that had been sitting on ice. My beverage of choice for the day was a tasty 3-Way IPA, from Fort George Brewing, in partnership with Sunriver Brewing and Mirage Brewing. It definitely satisfied my taste buds, and I enjoyed each drink.

After our quick snack, we headed back up to get some more turns in. The quality of the snow was really good, and was helped by the fact that an inch or two of fresh snow from a few days ago smoothed out the patch considerably. Smooth snow makes for fun turns, as Joe demonstrates below…

As we made our way back up to the top of the patch for another lap, we were surprised to run into another skier. In all the years of making summer/fall turns on the patch, we hadn’t seen another skier as dumb as we were. We chatted for a bit, and then I recognized it was Bart from the Mt Bachelor ski patrol. I recognized him from a senior clinic we held at Willamette Pass earlier in the year. We chatted for a bit, and then all of us dropped in for a run.

Dan snapped some photos of me on the way down, and I returned the favor on the following lap by shooting several photos of him as he skied down. The sun was out again while I snapped photos of Dan, and as usual he made some showy turns for the camera.

At the bottom, we invited Bart to head back up and make a few more laps with us, and he obliged. The snow was good and we were enjoying chatting, so it didn’t take much arm twisting

On the next run, I dropped in and setup to shoot some shots of Bart as he came down (which I later emailed to him), and then took a few shots of Joe and Dan as well. The following six shots were from the same lap…

More turns and more pictures followed, and I’m running out of words to describe it so I’ll let the following pictures describe it…

We headed back up for a 10th and final lap (I’d been keeping track by stacking rocks in a row), and decided that we’d head down after earning about 1,500 feet of vertical (Dan’s standard), with some insurance turns waiting on the north side patches. On the final lap, Dan shot some more pictures of me enjoying some late summer/early fall snowboarding, and we wrapped up our turns on the Cirque patch.

We picked up our packs, finished our beers, and headed over to the northside patch, passing by the Rope Tow on the way. As usual, we had to hike down a bit over the rocks to get onto the snow, but it definitely wasn’t a big deal.

We ended up only making one run on the north patch – the snow was decent, but not nearly as smooth as the Cirque patch. It didn’t receive the small amount of fresh snow earlier in the week that the Cirque patch did, and that made quite a bit of difference. Nevertheless, I snapped a few pictures of the skiers as they headed down, and we still enjoyed the slope.

Once at the bottom of the north patch, the ski boots came off and the approach shoes went on, and it was a relatively easy hike back to mid-mountain.

Once at mid-mountain, we bid Bart farewell since he was parked over at the Sunrise lot, and we headed down as the clouds rolled in. Eventually, we worked our way to the base, hopped on the trail, and made our way back to the car.

At the car, we decided to load up the gear and head over to the nearby horse camp to do some grilling and celebrate the day. As we pulled in, we found one truck and horse trailer, but otherwise the place was empty. It also was an appropriate time for Joe to pull out a special custom made 30-year Turns All Year sticker for Dan, to commemorate his accomplishment. I snapped a few pictures of Dan, and we was all smiles…

A few minutes later the brats were ready on the grill, and it was time to enjoy another beverage. This time I opted for a River Refresher No-Mo IPA from the Crux Fermentation Project, and it wasn’t too bad, and paired nicely with a bratwurst!

We hung out for a bit, enjoying the brats, and chatting with the two old boys associated with the horse trailer who were planning to head up the following morning to do some deer hunting on the west side of the South Sister. The conversation and the food were both good, but soon the hour started to get late, and it was time to hit the road. All things considered, it was pretty much a perfect early October day in the mountains!