Powdr Corp. chooses to keep the popular Central Oregon ski resort after listing it for sale last year. And in a nod to locals, kids under 12 will now ski free (with conditions).
A year after listing it for sale, Mt. Bachelor ski resort’s corporate owner has chosen to retain the Pacific Northwest’s largest ski area for the time being.
Eight months ago, Utah-based Powdr Corporation listed Mt. Bachelor for sale through JP Morgan Chase. That triggered an as-yet-unsuccessful grassroots effort to purchase the recreation area and operate it as a “values-based” nonprofit.
“There are numerous factors involved in evaluating a sale,” writes spokeswoman Stacey Hutchinson in a statement Friday morning. “After considering all facts and circumstances, POWDR has decided to retain ownership of Mt Bachelor indefinitely. We’re excited to continue our stewardship of the resort and serve the Central Oregon community with truly one-of-a-kind skiing.”
Hutchinson writes in the statement that Powdr will finish adding improvements to the mountain including updated power capability and an Advance Wood Energy facility.
Powdr owns eight other resorts, including Snowbird in Utah and Copper Mountain in Colorado. The company was founded in 1994 by early Mountain Hardwear investor John Cumming. In 2001, Powdr purchased Mt. Bachelor along with Bend-based rafting outfitter Sun Country Tours.
For decades, the ski resort at the former Bachelor Butte has been a staple of Central Oregon’s tourism-heavy economy, with annual operating costs above $100 million and 1,100 employees in 2024. But since 2001, some users have complained Powdr has pursued profits by allowing deferred maintenance to add up and limiting operations at the mountain. During Powdr’s time as owner, Bachelor also bore the unfortunate distinction of being Oregon’s deadliest ski area, with an average of one death at the mountain per year for the past decade.
In August, Powdr announced it would focus its efforts on national park concessions and sell Mt. Bachelor, Sun Country Tours, Eldora ski resort in Colorado, SilverStar in British Columbia as well as two Vermont ski areas, Killington and Pico Mountain.
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Hutchinson tells Oregon Business that Powdr still intends to sell Eldora and SilverStar.
Killington and Pico Mountain were sold to a small group of local investors.
That national parks side of Powdr’s business model has perhaps been affected by President Donald Trump, who in his first months as president fired around 1,000 National Park Service workers, many of whom perform maintenance at national parks, raising questions about continued operations, according to the Associated Press.
John Merriman, Mt. Bachelor’s general manager and president, told Oregon Business in early 2024 that given the mountain’s distance from major cities, the resort had a greater duty to cater to locals.
“This is positive news for Mt. Bachelor and we’re looking forward to our continued journey with Powdr at the helm,” Merriman says in a recent statement. “I want to extend a thank you to the amazing team at Mt. Bachelor for their patience, positive attitude, and commitment to making this one of the best seasons yet.”
After Powdr listed Mt. Bachelor for sale, an ownership bid emerged from an unlikely source. Calling themselves Mt. Bachelor Community Inc., a group of Central Oregonians and Mt. Bachelors users organized online to raise money to purchase and run the recreational area.
An MBCI co-founder told The Bend Bulletin the group remains serious about purchasing Mt. Bachelor but was unable to submit a bid to Powdr due to time constraints.
“We felt we had enough capital pledged to purchase Mt. Bachelor, but the company was still silent … We had a big investor with $75 million and we met every requirement they threw at us, and still we were told the bidding process was closed.”
MBCI raised $45,000 in initial donations through GoFundMe. The nonprofit will now double-down and direct all unspent donations to a bid proposal despite the mountain no longer being listed for sale, the Bulletin reports.
MBCI wasn’t the first such effort. In 2012, Community Buyout of Mt. Bachelor (BOMB) agitated on social media for increased community involvement in the mountain and a nonprofit or partial-nonprofit ownership model.
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