Mount Hood Sports & Outdoors

On the southeast side of Mt Hood, Mt Hood Meadows offers the best skiing terrain to be found of the resorts on and around Mt Hood. For many in the Portland metropolitan area, Meadows is the main ski venue. Skiers of beginning and intermediate abilities have a lot to cover here. Advanced and experts have some good cliffy runs, though - except for Heather Canyon - most are fairly short with long run outs. There are five high-speed quad chairs and several slower double chairs from which the snow enthusiast can cover a lot of vertical feet in a day?s outing. Snow here tends, like at most other Hood resorts, to be on the big side. Base levels are measured in the hundreds of inches. Local skiers don?t go out until there is a base of over 70? - usually obtained by late November or early December. Snowfalls in individual storms can drop several feet of snow or more at a time. When the weather is cold, the snows can be very good - Rocky Mountain good. One problem is that there are spells during the winter when temperatures will get above freezing - due in part to low elevations; Meadows base is right about 5000 feet - and that will serve to compact the snows already on the ground, giving rise to the infamous Cascade Concrete.

At the base of the resort is a large building within which is housed a couple of eating venues, a large rental shop and lockers for day use. There are local buses that do come up on a daily basis, but most skiers have their own vehicles and park them in the large lots either here at the base or a the other parking lot a couple miles to the north at Hood River Meadows - which is also the Nordic Ski center for the resort. Weekends can get very crowded, but during the week, it is very quiet.

Views from the runs are far-reaching. The mountain always towers high above everything

Equipment: Bring your own snow gear or rent it there.