Skiers Mob Mt. Bachelor
The tag line seemed too good to be true. I came across this article in the Bend Bulletin looking back on Bend 25 years ago . . . made me chuckle. A simpler time. I wonder what housing prices in Bend were then?
Unheard-of-event
Skiers used to shelling out big bucks for lift tickets came in droves to Mount Bachelor Friday for an almost unheard-of-event–a free day of skiing.
Eager schussers began arriving at Mount Bachelor’s parking lots at 4:30 AM. And they began lining up at the chairlifts about 30 minutes before they opened, Said Jeff Lokting, marketing and sales manager for Mount Bachelor, Inc.
“The Kind of Day We Wanted”
“This is exactly the kind of day we wanted to have,” a smiling Lokting said, adding that crowds were well-mannered an everyone seemed to be having a good time.
Resort officials put on the first ever ski-for-free day to say thank you to the community. The day also served as an initiation for some first-time skiers, who packed the lift to the easier runs.
By noon, 3000 of the ski area’s 3400 parking spaces were full. Lokting did not have figures on the number of skiers sliding down the slopes, but he estimated that the crowds were not as heavy as Nov.29, the Saturday after Thanksgiving when a turnout of 11,62 skiers (and no snowboarders!) broke attendance records.
Refugees From California
About 20% of the skiers were from a still snowless California–an observation Bud and Mary Cook of Klamath Falls tended to confirm.
The Cooks said that they followed a steady stream of out-of-state cars up US Hwy97 on Friday morning
Pine Marten Express
The free-ski day coincided with the opening of the Pine Marten Express, which was dedicated Saturday.
The Pine Marten lift which will replace the Black Lift joins the Summit Express as the only express lifts installed at a West Coast ski area.
The lift, which takes less than half the time of a conventional lift to reach its mid-mountain end, has no problem gobbling up over-sized crowds.
Whoops could be heard as skiers boarded the special lift for the first time.
“It Holds a Heck of a lot of People”
“The lift holds a heck of a lot of people. It goes about a hundred miles an hour!”
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