Snowboarding highlights: Mount Bachelor

Mount Bachelor has the distinction of being one of the country's first resorts to open its entire mountain to snowboarders, and today snowboarding is more of a priority then ever. Bachelor is the only resort in Oregon to employ a separate staff dedicated to maintaining their terrain park and halfpipes. Each pipe - one each for novices and experts - is sculpted with a Pipe Dragon. The novice pipe, located under Sun Rise Express, has six to eight-foot walls and is 200 to 300 feet long. The advanced pipe lies under the Yellow Chair and near the West Village. It's a standard Olympic competition pipe, running 300 feet long, with the verts sometimes reaching as high as 14 feet with six-foot trannies.

The terrain park is located near the top of Pat's Way to the right of the Skyliner Express. Open to both skiers and boarders, the park gets bigger and better every year and features 15 to 20 manmade obstacles including quarterpipes, spines, rollerz, kickers, and other natural hits. The expertly built park also features spacious drop-in areas with smooth transitions. For great free riding head straight off the back side from the top of the Summit Express. At the top there are several big bowls of powder that lead into gladed tree runs and eventually to the Northwest Territory's cat track. Hit the cat track and follow it back down to the Northwest Quad.

The Mount Bachelor Snowboard Learning Center offers a variety of instructional programs for riders of all abilities and ages. The programs will help riders develop skills to ride the entire mountain, including steeps, bumps, cruisers, and powder.

Bachelor offers a 3,000-square-foot facility dedicated to snowboard retail and rentals. There are 550 sets of snowboard packages available, as well as a large selection of demo boards from top manufacturers. Rental inventory includes K2 or Morrow boards, and Air Walk or K2 boots.

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