Mount BachelorOregon's largest ski area — a 9,065-foot stratovolcano with 4,318 acres, 360-degree summit terrain, and 462" of annual snowfall

Mount Bachelor is a 9,065-foot stratovolcano in the central Oregon Cascades, 22 miles southwest of Bend along the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway. The volcano last erupted about 18,000 years ago and is part of the same volcanic chain that built the Three Sisters, Broken Top, and Newberry Volcano — a Pleistocene-era cluster of cones, domes, and shield volcanoes now monitored by the USGS. The summit cone rises symmetrically 1,500 feet above a broad, mostly-treeless upper bowl, which gives the resort its signature feature: 360-degree skiing off the Summit Express, with no other lift-served U.S. resort offering a single peak with this much circular terrain.

The ski area opened in 1958 with one rope tow and a permit from the Deschutes National Forest. Today it covers 4,318 skiable acres — the sixth-largest in the U.S. and the largest in Oregon — served by 11 lifts (4 of them high-speed quads), spread across three base areas: West Village (the main lodge), Sunrise (the easternmost base, opened 2017 with the Cloudchaser quad to the upper Outback bowls), and Sunset Lodge at the base of the Pine Marten chair. The 462-inch annual snowfall average and the relatively dry, low-density Cascades powder produce one of the longest seasons in the U.S. — late November through Memorial Day is typical, and the resort has stayed open into July four times since 2010.

Bend, Oregon, is the basecamp — 22 miles east on Century Drive, a 35-minute drive that climbs 4,200 feet from town. There's no on-mountain lodging at the resort itself; Sunriver Resort (15 miles south of the lifts), Tetherow (8 miles east on the road back to Bend), and the historic downtown Bend hotels (the Oxford, the McMenamins Old St. Francis School) are the standard bases. The Mount Bachelor Park & Ride from the Old Mill District in Bend runs a free shuttle on weekends and powder days. Summer is increasingly the second peak season — the Bike Park drops 2,300 vertical feet of lift-served trails, the Sunchaser chair runs scenic rides to Pine Marten Lodge for lunch, and the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway opens through to Hosmer Lake, Sparks Lake, and the Three Sisters Wilderness trailheads.