‘Above-average season’: Looking back at Mt. Bachelor’s 2024-25 ski season
Jillian Fortner
(Updated with comments; Jillian Fortner has a report at Six
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — Oregon’s ski season got off to its earliest start in decades, with lifts spinning before Thanksgiving at both Mt. Bachelor and Mt. Hood Meadows.
Hoodoo Resort also recorded one of its earliest openings on record.
“It came with a ton of early-season snowfall, and that just kicked off the year in such a positive way,” Lauren Burke, Mt. Bachelor’s director of marketing and communications, said Friday.
Jillian Fortner takes a look back at the highs of the 2024–25 season tonight on KTVZ News at 6:00 p.m.
By March, Mt. Bachelor’s base depth was nearing 160 inches. Cold temperatures throughout the winter helped preserve the snowpack and stretch the season well into spring.
“We saw consistent snowfall throughout the year and then wrapped it up a couple days ago on Memorial Day. So it was an above-average season,” Burke said.
Mt. Bachelor recorded about 450 inches of total snowfall in the 2024-25 season.
Back in 2023-24, the total snowfall only reached around 375 inches. Mt. Bachelor said icy conditions and strong winds impacted their operations that year.
“If you remember, we had major icing, both in town and on the mountain. We saw multiple days of 100+ mph winds,” Burke said.
But not every skier noticed a big difference.
Teddy Hoffman, a Central Oregon local who’s been skiing since he was 3, says he hit the slopes around 35 times this season. He said the snow and conditions didn’t feel all that different from the previous year.
“I’d say it was about the same. There was a little more snow, but yeah. The conditions, nothing seemed too crazy,” Hoffman said.
Nationwide, the National Ski Areas Association says this was the second-highest ski season on record for visits. In the Pacific Northwest alone, resorts saw about 4.7 million visits which is a nearly 11% increase from last year.
Mt. Bachelor hasn’t released its visitor numbers just yet. The resort’s summer operations begin June 26th.