Mt. Bachelor’s downhill bike park opened for the season on Thursday, June 26, 2025, and when you’re accustomed to how massive of a motorcycle city Bend, Oregon is, you understand that is enormous for this system. A pair buds and I headed as much as trip opening day on Thursday afternoon. From Century Drive, the mountain nonetheless appears vaguely skiable, and we joked how wild it was that we have been going to trip bikes. The Mountain Ops groups at Bachelor has been exhausting at work digging the bike trails out from the greater than 400″ of snow that the mountain obtained this previous winter. Driving up Pine Marten, you may see faint traces of ski tracks in snow from the place of us had been touring after the resort closed in April. Whereas volcano corn snowboarding appeared mildly engaging, seeing how patchy and rocky the snow had turn out to be rapidly ended that prepare of thought.Wish to sustain with the most effective tales and pictures in snowboarding? Subscribe to the brand new Powder To The Folks publication for weekly updates.
Photograph: Izzy Lidsky
Bend is thought partially for having a few of the sandiest PNW using round. Not like the cheesy dust and loam in locations like Seattle and Bellingham, it takes quite a lot of moisture to moist our dust down. Given how a lot snow had simply been eliminated, we have been hopeful that we would get some cheesy dust. Similar to early season snowboarding, early season biking is usually a bit…variable. We discovered wonderful dust and options on Lava Move, Cone Run, Decrease Rattlesnake, and Blade Runner. It was indescribably good to be again using lifts to mountain bike. We additionally discovered a few of Bachelor’s basic sandy corners, lava rock child heads, and some snow-melt puddles, however contemplating how a lot snow remains to be up there, it was superior that mountain ops even obtained the bike park open this early. Everyone knows trails can take a while to easy out every year.
Photograph: Izzy Lidsky
An excellent portion of the greater than 500 miles of singletrack across the Bend space are a bit extra cross-country centered, so Mt. Bachelor’s bike park is a welcome change with lift-accessed, gravity fueled volcano using. Moreover, Mt. Bachelor modified their coverage this yr to permit Class-1 pedal-assist e-bikes on the mountain’s downhill trails. The mountain’s coverage change is available in an effort to make the bike park extra accessible to a broader vary of riders. The mountain additionally welcomes the usage of adaptive e-bikes on its downhill trails. E-bikes have been a controversial subject on Bend trails, however Mt. Bachelor permitting them is a incredible step in the correct course for making mountain biking extra accessible.
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