January 24, 2017 Cloudchaser, Mt. Bachelor

It was our first visit to ski the terrain off their new express quad, Cloudchaser. It is located on the NE side of the mountain. The terrain is mainly wooded and holds the powder for days. We had a sunny day with temps in the low 20's. The last powder days were skied in the steep wooded terrain, and the low terrain to the base was not skied due to the low angles and gullies. The groomed trails were fantastic – some are wide and others are narrow gullies with a zig zag run. You move side to side, going up the gully sides and down and you are in treed terrain. We are addicted in the terrain off Cloudchaser. 90 percent of the terrain is in the woods. The last part of the chair ride is open to the winds that were hitting the Summit chair, and it was cold.

Our last visit to Bachelor was in the spring, and we can now see the amount of snow the mountain has received from the last weeks' storms. Everything is open and the coverage is great. We moved from express lift to express lift to express lift until our quads said “stop”.

We have friends who moved from Bellevue to Bend years ago. We found out that last month's storms left a lot of powder on their home in Bend. Roofs were collapsing from the weight. They had 4 feet of snow on their roof and paid a team to shovel the roof for $1000. Some of their friends had major roof damage and flooding from 'ice dams'. We saw numerous roofs at the end of their life. The roads in Bend are an “icy' experience; I've never seen the roads in there with snow and ice like this. The roads to the mountains have 4-6 foot snowbanks.

The last picture is a vehicle that was parked near us in the RV area at the West Village area. It is old an fire department trunk that was re-done as a “RV” with bunks like a bunkhouse. They carry 6 snowboards and are from Michigan out chasing the snow. Nice group.

Wow, that looks like fun. New chair, darn don't know that I even heard about it. DOH. I love Bachelor. Many fond memories, not least of which is passing my Level III there in 1988.

Bachy is fun during the spring after the padded seats stop loading.