An update from Hoodoo

Matthew McFarland, General Manager, Hoodoo Ski Area

Sadly, this last storm left us worse off than we were before it hit. The local Bend newspaper just ran a story that we were going to meet and decide on the opening of Hoodoo today. I guess that is newsworthy, but truthfully, we come here daily, check the conditions, check the forecast and make decisions. The last two weeks have been spent mining snow from the trees and various pockets where the wind deposits it and hauling all the snow up to the top of Manzanita and Easy Rider so we would be ready to run with no delays following a small storm.

Unfortunately, all of that work was washed away with the initial rain that came with the last storm and not a bit of the snow we stockpiled is there anymore. It's quite depressing, really. The last few days have been spent closely watching the forecast with mixed emotions. We were first told to expect 3-5 inches, then 8-14 inches... and then 4-6 inches. We figured we would at least get a few inches to help out.

Then the forecast changed to 14-21 inches! We were starting to count the chickens before they hatched and plan our opening weekend. Instead, we got two days of rain and three inches of snow. The rain destroyed everything we had worked on and more. The three inches we got is nice and we are thankful for it, but sadly, other than flocking the trees (which is beautiful), the snow did little to help us with our plan to open. We spent time today looking at places to mine snow, but there is even less available than before.

Currently, we are hoping the weather stays cold and maybe — with a little luck — any snow we receive in the future will settle in just right and soon we can get back to what we all love: playing in the snow!

Just a reminder to all of our season pass holders: Please don’t forget that we are Hoodoo. We always do things differently here and we like to believe that is part of the reason you have chosen to ski and ride with us each season. We are committed to taking care of our loyal guests, and as such, anyone who wants to roll their 2013-14 season pass over to the 2014-15 season, consider it done. Obviously, that doesn't help everyone, but we will make other arrangements after the season gets rolling.

Praying for snow!