Katie and I found ourselves in the land of sunshine, lava rocks, and volcanoes – aka Bend Oregon for the weekend. We had a perfect, cloudless day so ski touring to the top of Mount Bachelor with our friend Patrick was on the menu for the day.
After a great “alpine” start that included 10 am brunch in town (shoutout to Sparrow Bakery!) we made the short drive up to the Mount Bachelor parking lot. Among the many great things about Bend is the quick access to outdoor adventures. We were able to get up to Mount Bachelor so quickly and still have a fun day ahead of us after such a mellow start.
I had never been to Bachelor before, but with the sun shining and warm temps it seemed like a great place. We strapped on our skins and started up at around 11:20 am, receiving some good-natured ribbing from some of the ski race people about our “early” start.
There is an obvious and well-marked uphill route going straight up from the main Bachelor parking lot. As we climbed up on the side of a downhill run and past a cinder cone, views started to open up towards Broken Top and the Sisters. Although I am on the record as saying I prefer the endless jagged layers of the North Cascades, I had to admit it was cool to see a landscape punctuated by massive snowy volcanoes.
We continued up, passing Pine Marten Lodge, which is where the trees start to disappear, and the angle steepens. Here we set off and it became obvious that we were climbing a volcano that day. The massive snowy peak was entirely treeless, and the snow was badly wind-affected – making for difficult skinning conditions. At certain points, I really had to dig my edges into the slope to maintain grip on the sometimes-tenuous skin track. Thankfully, the runout wasn’t too bad.
Eventually we made up to a shoulder at around 8700/8800’ where we assessed the final slope. It was funny to have worked so hard to get to this point only to see 7-year-old skiers (who were incredibly talented – I was stunned at how well some of them could ski) dropping into steep bowls with their ski instructors.
The final slope is north facing and steeper than what we had just come up. Thinking it would be icy, we opted to boot up the last 300 vertical feet. This turned out to be the right choice, and Patrick kicked great steps up with his ski boots.
It’s always an amazing feeling to stand on top of a volcano. Views were expansive in every direction – with the Sisters and various other pointy volcanoes dominating the skyline to the north. The total ascent had taken us 2 hours and 24 minutes. Overall, my GPS said that it was 2.3 miles and 2691 feet of ascent.
The trip down was fun – even if the skiing at the top wasn’t. We first had to contend with icy moguls at the summit and then the same wind affected crap that had made skinning difficult on the way up. It was like skiing down a staircase there were so many ledges and lips that the wind had sculpted out of the mountainside. Still, it was easy to appreciate what a beautiful place we were in and soon we were back down on groomed runs. These runs were in great condition, and we had a fun few minutes of shredding up the groomers before finding ourselves back at the car.
Overall, it was an incredible experience to casually skin to the top of a volcano after brunch, ski down, and still have time for a walk at Smith Rock State Park afterward. Bend has a lot to offer and I’m sure we’ll be back!
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