waltt@shark.UUCP (Walt Tucker) (01/18/84)
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I went to Mt. Bachelor weekend before last and got a chance to ski
the new summit chair. The chair runs to the 8950 foot level and
makes total vertical feet at Mt. Bachelor now about 2600. The summit
chair increases the number of chairlifts at Mt. Bachelor to 10. Pretty
nice. There are two main runs off of the chair. One side is black
diamond (which was closed), the other side is intermediate. Kind of
like Texas at Mt. Hood Meadows, except the elevation is higher,
there is not quite the wide snow field, and the intermediate run is a
little harder than Texas trail.
There was about a 40 mph wind at the top, but once you got off the
chair and skied about 50 feet around a ridge, you were out of the wind.
The chair is of the type that releases from the cable when you get on
and off (the chairs are stored when the lift is not in operation). You
get on the chair inside of a building, and off the chair inside of a
building. Nice. Still ski in--ski out, though.
The view is beautiful! From the top, you can see three quarters of the
way around the mountain (actually Mt. Bachelor is really a Butte,
not a true mountain) There were some light clouds off in the distance
(50-100 miles), so I didn't get the whole view in that direction. But
some people I talked to said that earlier that day you could see Crater
Lake (about 80 miles away) and Mt. Shasta (about 180 miles) from the top.
Since the elevation at the top was fairly high, and I'm kind of out of
shape (only my second time up this year and you know about the 'ol winter
flab), I got a little winded coming down. The run is definitely
going to be a popular one this season, though!
-- Walt
Tektronix, Inc.
Wilsonville, OR.
P.S. -- While the lower chairs were suffering from crusty snow conditions,
there was still about 1-1/2 inches of dry powder to be found on the
summit chair.