Ski Bowl Insider
Welcome to Ski Bowl Insider, your ultimate guide to Mt. Hood Ski Bowl from a local perspective. Our page offers insider tips and insights to help you get the most out of your visit, from the best parking spots to the most thrilling runs.
Winter Tips:
Lets start with Parking. Ski bowl has a relatively small parking lot that often fills up on powder days and weekends. The main parking lot is at Ski Bowl West as seen in the image below. This area services the main lifts as well as the lodge, bar, rentals, lift tickets, and ski school. Generally speaking, Ski Bowl patrons will park anywhere they can fit including the parking lot for the Mirror Lake trail head. Unlike other nearby resorts, there are no parking attendants and you may find yourself doing laps to find a spot. If it is absolutely packed and there is nowhere to park, you can head over to *insider secret* the Ski Bowl East parking area.
Ski Bowl East is where the cosmic tubing goes down. It also has a small lodge with bar (that is often closed). However, lets say your family is going tubing and you want to snowboard/ski, well you can actually walk just over a small hill past the tubing area to the Multorpor chair and get to the front side from there. This is also a great option if you are staying in Government Camp and don’t want to drive. Enough about parking though, lets get to the good stuff:
Insider Ski Info:
Cascade Lift/East Side
Don’t tell anyone but here are some tips I have learned from riding at Ski Bowl dozens of times. Lets start at the far left of the map, at Ski Bowl East. That lift, the Cascade, rarely runs. I usually only see it run when they have some school based slalom events going on. The ride up is longer than the ride down and unless you are trying to complete the whole map in a day, I would generally skip it.
Multorpor Lift/East Side
Moving over you see the Multorpor lift, based at Ski Bowl East. The photo makes it seem like its quite far from the East base, but its only about a 5 minute walk. There are only a few runs that come down to this lift and most people wouldn’t think anything of it. However, These are some of the most fun runs at night. They are well lit, have a good flow, and low traffic. Most of the time when I night ski, I ride these runs.
Main Area/Lower Bowl
Heading over to the West Side base area is the main lot. See the Lower Bowl lift? It’s the most crowded lift on the hill and it runs slow, stopping often for new riders falling over at the landing. It is however the best terrain for a new rider, coming down that giant super wide lower bowl run. Experienced riders will be dodging learners and groups hanging out on the hill.
At the bottom of this lift is the terrain park which consists of boxes and rails, but rarely and jumps. You do not need a lift to get there. It is serviced by a rope tow.
Main Area/Upper Bowl
Now lets go up the hill to the Upper bowl chair. This is the hardest terrain on the mountain however it also is home to the most scenic, long, best green run there is, Skyline. As you get off the upper chair you will see a run heading down what appears to be the backside of the mountain. That is skyline. It is a very light green that requires snowboarders to keep their speed or risk getting stuck. That being said it has a great view of Mt.Hood as you come around the back side. Now lets talk about:
The Outback
Advanced Riders, lets talk about the black diamonds. Looking at the Upper Bowl Lift, on the left are some good drops that you can access from the lift. Either head directly under the lift to access or down skyline to access the other areas. These steeps are fun, especially on deep powder days. Most competent riders will quite enjoy this but beware that at night it can get quite icy. Now look to the right of the Upper Bowl Lift, you see all that?? That’s prime deep powder hiking terrain. From the top of the lift you will either need to try to traverse over over under the lift or just hike over to your ideal spot. Here you will find steep chutes, cliffs, and awesome ski runs. There are no lights back here and I would definitely recommend riding with a partner. Ski Patrol is unlikely to find you quickly back here if something goes wrong. It is however the absolute gnarliest terrain here. On a Powder day, this is heaven.
Photo 1: The Historic Warming Hut as seen from Mid-Mountain. The warming hut offers cocoa, snacks, and cold beer as well as an amazing view of Mt.Hood and a warm fire and bathrooms
Photo 2: This is the main run, Lower Bowl. You can see the warming hut midway up, beyond that is Upper Bowl and the black runs.
Last tips:
- As Ski Bowl’s Season goes on, they will eventually move to Night’s only on weekdays and open at 3pm. If you are skiing a powder day at another resort, leave early, and come here for open
- The parking lot on Weekend Night’s gets pretty busy around 5-6PM Friday, and 3PM Sat-Sun
- Buy your tubing tickets well in advance
- Check out the Historic Warming Hut. There is a sweet kitty inside who runs the place.
- At night, hit the Multorpor Lift’s runs. They have great flow.
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