We decided to take a vacation from retirement travelling and spend a month snowboarding. We wanted a “locals” hill (a ski resort which caters more to locals than to guests “from away”) and a place with enough variety to keep us from getting bored.
Mt Bachelor in Oregon seemed to fit the bill: the 6th largest ski resort in North America; over 4300 acres of accessible terrain; average snowfall of over 460″ per year; over 100 trails; summit elevation over 9000′; and a vertical drop of over 3300′.
A search through Airbnb found us a nice sounding place in nearby Bend. The owner has dogs and is happy to host more. The unit comes with its own fenced yard, yeah dogs! The owner has two large dogs and was also looking after her daughter’s two dogs, a Leonberger and a Newfoundland!
We dropped Rosita off at Sunset RV Storage conveniently located just outside Lake Mead National Recreation Area (where we are currently camping).
It’s a 13.5 hour drive to Bend, Oregon, so we decided to do the drive over two days. We spent the night at the Big Chief Motel, which sounds sketchy, but was a nice hotel that allowed dogs and we got an accessible room (#105) which was huge and had tiled floors.
Arriving at the Airbnb (called the “Second Wind Inn”) we discovered that it was located on the second floor, above the owner’s workshop. The stairs to the second floor were open-backed and made from steel grating. No problems for SweetPea, but Lump was not having anything to do with them. No way. Not happening, I’ll just sleep in the truck.
Seeing our dilemma, the owner came out with some carpeting and proceeded to wire it to the stairs. Shortly thereafter Lump decided he could join us upstairs after all.
The unit was perfect! Two bedrooms, fully equipped kitchen, bathroom with washer/dryer, and a living room with Netflix on the tv. How good is that!
Poor SweetPea… if you notice her under the table you can see that she is wearing pants. She went into heat during our staying. Definitely not keen on wearing them at first, but she eventually got used to them and they really made keeping the unit clean much easier!
The view from the property is incredible…
… and the property is quite large with many dog-walking trails.
This place is perfect for the dogs (and us)!
The property has been in the owner’s family for generations, and was a working farm for many years. The property even has it’s own car junk yard with many very cool wrecks.
The town of Bend, Oregon has a population of less than 100k, but is very prosperous and growing quickly. Bend has a very nice feel to it, relaxed like a resort village, but all the amenities of a bustling town.
There are no tall buildings (max of 4 stories that we saw), and the commercial buildings have a residential look, and are integrated into the residential areas.
The city runs a park-and-ride shuttle service to the ski resort, so we purchased bus passes (10 round trips for $120), instead of having to drive up to the hill every day. The ski hill is located about 45 minutes from the Airbnb unit, but the parking lot for the shuttle was only about 15 minutes from the Airbnb, so shuttling was easier for us . The shuttle was about a 30 minute drive from the parking lot during all weather conditions, the bus drivers are crazy! Overtaking traffic in whiteout snow conditions or 12″ of slush!
Mt Bachelor is quite large in both area and vertical drop and it is easy to get lost. During our first day, while we were still trying to remember how to make the snowboards work, we went too far east and ended up on a double black diamond run that had a couple of feet of new snow. And trees. Did I mention that there were lots of trees?
It took us ages to work our way back to a trail that we could ride without falling down every 2 minutes (no pain though due to the 2′ of powder).
We snowboarded for 18 days. We bought seasons passes, good for Mon-Fri, as it was much less expensive than purchasing daily lift tickets. We didn’t have boards, so we bought really inexpensive used boards/bindings at a local used equipment store.
During this time we boarded over 240 miles (yes miles) and over 230,000 vertical feet!
Mt Bachelor has an amazing cellphone app that tracks, in great detail, all of your activity, and emails you a summary of daily and seasonal achievements. Great fun, great app!
We took advantage of being in one place for more than a day or three to get our online shopping fix… an Amazon buying spree!
We didn’t go too wild, we bought some upgrades for Rosita: 200 watt, 12 volt solar panel kit; 120 volt AC 25 amp battery charger. More on these when we have time to install them on Rosita.
We originally planned on staying for four weeks, but ended up staying for five. The boarding was excellent, the Airbnb was perfect and Bend was great. We arrived in Bend on February 12 and left on March 19.
Finally time to get back to retirement, so we gave away all of our winter sports equipment (snowboards, helmet, boots, cross-country skis & boots, snowshoes) to a local charity, “Vamanos Outside”, that tries to get latino youth interested in winter activities. We didn’t need any of this equipment as the next time we engage in outdoor winter activities we will be in Europe, and it is not worth the cost of shipping these items overseas (not to mention the fact that we will get to buy new stuff!).
I finally came to the conclusion that I was not going to be the next Eric Clapton, so I gave away my guitar to a local not-for-profit music school. The guitar was a bit big and bulky to keep shlepping around if I wasn’t going to use it.
Next stop, Sunset RV and Storage… we’re coming Rosita!
Trip Summary:
Depart from: Las Vegas Bay campground, Arizona
Depart time: 8:45 am (Feb 10)
Odometer: 132105 miles
Arrive: 4:45 pm Battle Mountain, NV (Big Chief Motel)
Odometer: 132548 miles
Depart from: Battle Mountain, NV
Depart time: ? am (Feb 11)
Arrive: 4:30 pm Bend, Oregon
Gas Summary:
Indian Springs, NV (Feb 10): 14.6g @ $4.60/g ($66.98) – ODO 132176 miles
Tonopah, NV (Feb 10): 9.2g @ $4.30/g ($39.59) – ODO 132341 miles
Winnemucca, NV (Feb 11): 15.1g @ $3.60/g ($54.27) – ODO 132605 miles
Burns, OR (Feb 11): 15.3g @ $3.90/g ($59.80) – ODO 132830 miles
Bend, OR (Feb18): 18.8g @ $4.90/g ($76.84) – ODO 133129 miles
Bend, OR (Mar 14) : 21.6g @ $4.09/g ($89.97) – ODO 133399 miles
Fun Fact: you can’t pour your own gas in Oregon. Gas station attendants, sometimes in uniforms, rush out to your vehicle, take your credit card & swipe it through the pump (no PIN required) and pump your gas. No tipping.