Join us for the 7th Annual Ski For All at Mt Bachelor on March 16th, 2024 to celebrate the OAS community and raise critical funds to support our mission to create high quality outdoor experiences for individuals with disabilities. The Ski For All Games are a rite of passage, designed to challenge even the world’s greatest and most fun loving skiers & riders to see who can truly have the BEST DAY EVER on snow!
Score as many points as possible by completing a variety of fun and inclusive challenges on the mountain. Prizes will be awarded to the top three participants in youth, teen, adult and masters age groups (inclusive of ability and gender). The more points you score the more raffle tickets you can redeem to win epic prizes at the After-Party at Bend Brewing Co!
The Hoodoo Skibike festival celebrates our love of alternative sports at Hoodoo. Hoodoo is unique in allowing full-mountain access for skibikes, Trikkes, snowskates and snow scoots. Skibiking is a fun, easy-to-learn activity that provides a safe and low-impact way to hit the slopes. This event is great for seasoned skibikers and for those who have always wanted to try the sport.
Oregon’s glaciers are the natural water reservoirs of the high Cascade water towers. Glacier meltwater sustains rivers during the late summer and fall for flora, fauna and irrigation. The glacier melt chills streams for salmon and trout, with the attendant effect of cooling surrounding forests that reduces fire risk and intensity. In short, glaciers are an integral part of Central Oregon ecosystems and economies.
And yet, we do not know how many glaciers remain today in the basin, let alone how many existed a century ago. In this talk, Dr. Anders Carlson will present on the Oregon Glacier Institute’s findings from the first census of glaciers in Oregon since the 1950s. We will examine how these glacier changes are related to regional climate change, concluding the discussion on what the future holds for the remaining glaciers in the Deschutes Basin.
Come for an evening of sharing your adventure stories with others in the outdoor community. Settle in to listen or get prepared to share your adventure stories in 10 minutes or less from 7-9 PM. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
You can’t shred gnar, bomb down trail, climb volcanoes, and run whitewater all the time. But at Boldly Went we know that when you’re not, you want to talk about your adventures with other people who get it – probably over beer. And every thru hiker, trail runner, mountain biker, climber, paddler, sailor, scuba diver, flyer, and Indiana Jones wannabe has at least one story that will inspire, inform, or at least entertain the rest of us, so we’re pulling together crowds of you and randomly selecting you to go on stage to give us your best.
How it works: Event format is casual and starts with a brief review of how to tell a good outdoor adventure story. Anyone interested in telling a story will be encouraged to complete the storyteller sign up sheet throughout the evening. Of those signed up, names are drawn at random. Selected individuals are given 10 minutes to tell their adventure story.
Storytellers are judged by select audience members using criteria described in detail on the Boldly Went website. A winner is announced at the end of the evening. Stories are recorded and may be shared later in the weekly podcast.
Everyone is welcome to attend and no one will be required or pressured to tell a story.
See the Boldly Went website for more details about what to expect at the event and tips for preparing your 10 minute story if you think you have one to share.
The Oregon Outdoor Alliance Central Oregon Chapter is pleased to host an evening with extreme athlete, professional skier and B.A.S.E. jumper Matthias “Super Frenchie” Giraud! Matthias will present videos of some of his most challenging and entertaining adventures, along with lessons that he has learned along the way, such as risk taking, facing fears and accepting challenges head on. Joins us for a fun evening of adventure and storytelling.
The authors of the popular book, The Dirtbag’s Guide to Life: Eternal Truths for Hiker Trash, Ski Bums, and Vagabonds” are bringing their traveling show to XXX to collect your adventure stories and share them in their popular Boldly Went podcast. Come for an evening of sharing your outdoor adventure stories and meet like-minded people. Settle in to listen or get prepared to share your adventure stories in 10 minutes or less from 7-9 PM.
You can’t shred gnar, bomb down trail, climb volcanoes, and run whitewater all the time. But at Boldly Went we know that when you’re not, you want to talk about your adventures with other people who get it – probably over beer. And every thru hiker, trail runner, mountain biker, climber, paddler, sailor, scuba diver, flyer, and Indiana Jones wannabe has at least one story that will inspire, inform, or at least entertain the rest of us, so we’re pulling together crowds of you and randomly selecting you to go on stage to give us your best.
Check out the webpage for more details about what to expect at the event and tips for preparing your 10 minute story if you think you have one to share.
Central Oregon has a long history of Nordic and alpine skiing, but none is older or more influential than the Skyliners ski club. Born out of a rescue effort in the Three Sisters area in 1927, Scandinavians Nels Skjersaa, Nils Wulfsberg, Chris Kostol and Emil Nordeen founded Bend’s first ski club.
Fostering a love for the outdoors, the club put skiing, tobogganing, skating, hiking and mountain climbing on the map in Central Oregon. Skyliners built its first winter playground at McKenzie Pass in 1928. When the club started arranging annual competitions in 1929, athletes from the Pacific Northwest and Canada congregated on the area.
Skyliners’ top skiers, including John Ring, Olaf Skjersaa, Ole Amoth, and Arved Iverson held their own against Hjalmar Hvam and John Elvrum of Cascade Ski Club, and Ole Tverdahl of Seattle Ski Club. In 1931, Skyliners became one of the founding members of the Pacific Northwest Ski Association.
By 1935, the Skyliners had moved their ski area and jump to Skyliner Hill near Tumalo Creek.
A diminishing snowpack and a wish to build a larger ski jump prompted Skyliners to relocate its headquarters to the Tumalo Creek area, in the mid-1930s, where the only paved road still bears the club’s name.
Like many extracurricular clubs around the country, Skyliners went into hibernation with the outbreak of World War II. It wasn’t until the early 1950s that Skyliners resumed regular activities. With the establishment of a ski center at Bachelor Butte (now Mt. Bachelor) in 1958, the club made its final move.
From the new base west of Bend, head alpine coach Frank Cammack was instrumental in developing Skyliners’ next generation of top athletes, including Kiki Cutter, the first American to win a World Cup race. Others, including, Karen Skjersaa, Sherry Blann, Mark Ford (father of World Cup racer Tommy Ford) and Mike Lafferty competed at national and international tournaments.
After almost sixty years as an independent organization, Skyliners was integrated into Mt. Bachelor Ski Education Foundation (MBSEF) in 1986. Its legacy lives on in the ski and outdoor culture that is so deeply imprinted on the DNA of Central Oregon today.
Clockwise from top left: Four Scandinavians (left to right): Chris Kostol, Nels Skjersaa, Nils Wulfsberg and Emil Nordeen.The ski jump at Skyliners’ McKenzie Pass headquarters—the jump hill was expanded several times with a taller starting platform to accommodate longer jumps.As much a social club as an outdoors club, Skyliners arranged dances at the Hippodrome (where the Deschutes Public Library stands today) complete with in-house orchestra.
Editor’s Note: The Heritage Page is a product of the Deschutes Historical Society, a nonprofit volunteer organization dedicated to the preservation and celebration of Central Oregon’s early history.
