Pub Snippets..

A Most Eligible Bachelor:

Central Oregon resort boasts some of the country's best slopes and a wide range of nearby attractions.

San Fransisco Chronicle - October 27, 2002

By Michael Dugan

Bend, Oregon -- I was slipping into my ski sweater when the phone rang. Bad news: Weather on the slopes of nearby Mount Bachelor had turned ugly. Schussing was not advised.

Elsewhere, this might mean a day of HBO in my hotel room. Ski resorts are about skiing and not much else. Even at many-faceted Lake Tahoe, the most viable winter alternative is gambling. But some skiers lack the impulse to throw away their money for no reason. Call them goofy.

But this was Bend. By day's end I had hiked a mountain trail and a vast lava bed, ridden a horse called Slappy through silent woods and visited a first-rate museum of natural history. I didn't have time for golf, but it's a year-round option here.

Boasting one of the finest ski mountains in North America, Bend, in central Oregon, is a perfect destination for groups comprising both skiers and nonskiers. It does get cold, especially in January, but the town offers fine indoor diversions, including several downtown art galleries and one of the best museums of its kind in the country.

The benefits of Bend can be attributed to a lucky trick of nature. The town rests at 3,650 feet in the high desert -- more than a vertical mile lower than 9,000-foot Mount Bachelor, which rises 22 miles to the west, leaving Bend in a "snow shadow." The mountain range blocks the approach of winter storms.

Mount Bachelor receives 350 inches of snow a year, on average. Befitting its location at the edge of the Great Basin, the snow quality tends to be midway between the squeaky dry powder of Utah and the soggier conditions of the Pacific Northwest. Tahoe skiers would feel right at home.

Luckily, the sun was shining on Mount Bachelor when I drove up early the next morning. I quickly grasped why so many Bay Area skiers take the trouble to travel here, even though they live within four hours of great Tahoe resorts.

Approaching along the easy highway from the east, I saw the cone-shaped volcano rising imposingly before me, a towering hump of white. I was eager to take the one visible lift rising all the way to the top.

Bachelor's unusual pass system proved momentarily confusing. Skiers receive a card they must use to activate a turnstile at the entrance to every lift. A bungee-type cord holds the card around your neck and -- as I quickly discovered -- slings it into your face if you let go too quickly.

There are several choices of passes. A straight day pass ($44) requires no special comprehension. You can also buy "points passes" that allot you a specified number of points to enter the lift lines. Once you've burned up your points, your ticket is dead. The least expensive of these ($46) is good for 200 points. Seven of the 10 lifts here are quads, worth 20 points a pop. In other words, the cheapest points pass will buy you 10 quad rides. Any skilled, ambitious skier can burn that off before noon, making the day pass a better deal.

On the other hand, points passes can be used on different days (they are good for three years) and transferred from one skier to another. So beginners, or parents who want to take turns minding the baby at the lodge, will benefit from this system. So will skiers who want to make a single test run to check out the weather, with an option of coming back another day if it isn't to their liking

I rode the Pine Marten Express chair a few times, sliding down the Canyon, Coffee and Thunderbird runs. Each provided a quick dash through open snow to the tree line and long intermediate stretches after that.

The choices felt endless: Bachelor encompasses 71 groomed runs, one stretching for a mile and a half.

The New Summit Express took me all the way to the top, where a view of the surrounding forest and lakes qualifies as awesome. From here it is possible for experts to enter frightening trails that enable them to ski in a 360- degree arc around the mountain. I did not count myself among their number.

The Beverly Hills Run looked enticing, with light and fluffy snow perfect for carving turns. The trail ran entirely down open terrain, with boulders and white expanses stretching out on either side. It was sufficiently exhilarating to repeat. More than once.

On the previous day, when frigid shrouds of ice and fog enveloped the ski resort, I'd enjoyed a sunny, if crisp, day outdoors in Bend.

My explorations began on a winding trail to the peak of Pilot Butte. Rising to 4,139 feet on the eastern edge of town, Pilot Butte isn't much to look at, but a tramp to the top offers nice rewards. It's 1.6 miles up and down. Down is easier.

I wasn't alone on the footpath; many locals make the hike almost daily. They come for the exercise and a panoramic vista of the distant Cascades, including Mount Bachelor, Three Sisters, Broken Top and Mount Jefferson. As I ascended, the wind blowing through the trees almost drowned out the sound of traffic below. Passing sagebrush and bunch grasses, bitterbrush and Ponderosa pine, I spotted coyote tracks in the mud beneath my feet.

The way was lined with benches, affording great views of the nearby mountain clusters. One seat bore these words: "Bend, ain't it a butte?"

Everything is a butte around here, including Mount Bachelor (called Bachelor Butte before promoters realized skiers would be more attracted to a "Mount.") Pilot Butte is a cinder cone created by an eruption 188,000 years ago. This region was formed in fire.

The landscape lies at the core of all things here, and that landscape is volcanic. It is difficult to reconcile the pacific aspects of contemporary central Oregon culture -- artists and free thinkers seem to rule -- with the violence that once tossed this terrain and covered it with sizzling lava.

Check out the names on an area map: Lava Lake and Little Lava Lake, Lava Cast Forest, Lava Butte, Lava River Cave and Lava Lands. I drove to Lava Lands,

just south of the city, and wandered among acres of solidified molten rock tossed up six millennia back. I opted not to clamber up Lava Butte, located at the edge of Lava Lands. I didn't want to violate my one-butte-a-day rule. Nearby Lava Cave, alas, was closed.

The morning had slipped away. I had lunch at Legends Publick House, a pleasant Bend pub with a good sandwich menu. Pointing my rental car south again, I cruised 3 1/2 miles and pulled into the parking lot of the High Desert Museum.

For the next three hours, I became lost in the history and ecology of the arid Intermountain West, as this region is called. The museum lays it all out with stunning creativity.

Captivating life-size dioramas with realistic sound effects transported me to dawn at a Paiute Indian camp and nightfall at a "buckaroo bunkhouse." A re- created old town included a Chinese mercantile store (with sounds of a spirited mah-jongg game coming from the back room), a Wells Fargo office and a saddlery. I investigated a mock hard-rock mine. As walks through time go, this was convincing.

Many of the museum exhibits explicate the lives of the Plateau people who have lived here for more than 10,000 years. Replica dwellings ranged from tepees to a typical 1963 reservation house. It's made clear that each stage of settlement after the arrival of Europeans altered the local ecosystem.

Outside the main building, paved paths took me to a porcupine habitat, a desert pond replete with rainbow trout, an otter exhibit, an aviary populated by handsome raptors, and early artifacts of the European invasion: a sawmill, settler's cabin and sheepherder's wagon. I realized as I returned to my car that the High Desert Museum answers questions you would never think to ask.

Feeling inspired to do what the settlers once did, I hopped onto a horse and headed into the hills. Slappy, my steed, was a 17-year-old steel-gray Appaloosa gelding belonging to the River Ridge Stables at the Inn of the 7th Mountain Resort.

With guides Blair Bunker, 18, and Jeannette Ray, 41, I set off into the Deschutes National Forest. For an hour and a half, we traipsed through quiet copses and along a burbling river. I became hypnotized by the steady gait and the natural incense of the groves. The trail ride ended too soon, but dusk was about to descend.

Dinner with a friend at rustic Pine Tavern in downtown Bend yielded a meal of sesame-crusted grilled tuna with Asian sweet chile sauce, jasmine rice and wasabi.

From there we made a short walk to the Bend Distillery, where proprietor Jim Bendis makes his own gin using local juniper berries and Cascade Mountain water, filtered through crushed volcanic rock. He also distills a fine vodka.

The menu in his bar includes an "iced hazelnut vodka latte" and a full range of tasty infused martinis. These are not to be casually consumed: "The scary thing about this is they are 50 percent alcohol," said Bendis. He limits customers to two drinks each. (emphasis added)

On another afternoon, I took a short stroll from my hotel back to the Pine Tavern, then turned left to some stairs leading down to the bank of the Deschutes River, which flows through town. White-tipped trees framed lovely homes across the water. Pale geese cruised in circles near the shore.

The trail curved around a rocky bend, leading to a peaceful park. A big white dog chased a squirrel up a tree there. In vain, the barking pooch tried to climb the trunk in pursuit of its prey.

"She's never seen a squirrel before," said the dog's owner. She must not be from Bend.