I’ve been skiing Mt. Bachelor for most of my life. I first started going with my family when I was around six, and some of my earliest ski memories are from trips there. In the early days, our routine was pretty simple: we’d open presents on Christmas morning, then load up the car and head across the mountains for a snowy week in Central Oregon. We’d also often head over during spring break for some late-season skiing.
Bachelor was where I really learned to ski, and plenty of those childhood memories are still surprisingly vivid. I remember the “new” high-speed lifts. I remember the mountain feeling absolutely enormous. I even remember being around 10 and ending one trip early after taking a fall, having a ski that didn’t release and fracturing my leg. I don’t remember much about the accident itself, but I definitely remember the cast. Fortunately, that didn’t end my skiing career.
Other than stretches during college and early in my career when I lived out of state, I’ve kept coming back. I’ve probably made around 20 trips to Bachelor over the years. My parents kept skiing there with us as they got older, and now many of the things I remember doing with them are things I’m doing with my own boys. They were roughly 7 and 4 when we first started bringing them to Bachelor. I did most of the teaching, Grandma helped, and we mixed in professional lessons over the years.
Today they’re 12 and 10, and our ski days look completely different than those early trips. That’s actually become one of my favorite things about Mt. Bachelor as a family ski destination: the mountain grows with your family.
of the facilities in the main parking lot.
Photo by Family Fun Money.
Growing Up—and Raising Kids—at Mt. Bachelor
I’ll admit upfront that I’m biased. Bachelor makes me nostalgic.
The mountain has changed since I was a kid, but many of the places still feel familiar. The lodges are where I remember them. The major parts of the mountain are still recognizable. There are runs I remember skiing over and over as a kid.
Don’t miss the turn into Dilly Dally Alley.
My tastes have changed a little since then. These days I’m much happier spending the day cruising a nice groomer than looking for some of the adventures I wanted as a kid. But now I get to watch my boys discover the mountain themselves.
When they were younger, we spent most of our time around Sunrise. It gave them enough variety to build confidence without us feeling like we were skiing the exact same run all day. As they’ve gotten better, we’ve gradually expanded farther around the mountain. We’ll still start with a run or two off Sunrise to get our legs underneath us, but now we’ll move toward Cloudchaser or Pine Marten and explore more.
And then there’s Summit.
My oldest started begging me to take him up when he was around 11, and now we try to do it at least once each trip when conditions cooperate. He can handle it. I know he can handle it. I’m also still his dad, so I spend part of the run watching him and hoping he’ll slow down.
The first time I took him up there was one of those moments that stuck with me. I learned to ski on this mountain, and suddenly I was standing near the top of it with my own son.
We’ve had another version of that experience with my parents. They’re both 81 now. Grandpa stopped skiing just a couple of years ago because of medication he was taking, but Grandma kept going. Getting our boys onto skis mattered to her. She helped me teach them, helped buy some of their equipment over the years and occasionally paid for lessons.
For her 80th birthday, she wanted three generations of our family to ski Bachelor together.
So we did.
I don’t know how many more ski days we’ll all get together, but my parents have gotten to watch their grandsons learn to ski on the same mountain where they watched me learn decades earlier. That’s a big part of what Bachelor has become for our family.
When a Family Ski Day Finally Becomes a Ski Day
Photo by Family Fun Money.
Anyone who has taught young kids to ski knows that a “family ski day” doesn’t necessarily involve much actual family skiing.
I’ve spent plenty of time with a kid between my legs trying to teach a snowplow. I’ve hauled everyone’s equipment, dealt with boots, helmets, gloves and goggles, and carried things kids suddenly decided were too heavy. I was trying to teach them while occasionally getting a little skiing in myself. I would absolutely teach my kids myself again. I’m just not sure my back could handle doing it again.
The payoff really hit me during our March 2026 trip.
My wife’s sister and her family joined us. They live in a state without much skiing and had spent their previous two spring-break ski trips with us at Mt. Hood. We’d been telling them they needed to try Bachelor, and they finally agreed. Their 7-year-old spent the ski days in full-day lessons, while the older kids could spend extended stretches skiing with us. My boys had also reached the point where we weren’t constantly stopping because my youngest needed a break.
For the first time, it really felt like we could just…ski.
We stopped for lunch, but otherwise we could spend the day moving around the mountain rather than structuring everything around breaks and beginner needs. If you’ve spent years teaching young kids to ski, you probably understand why that felt like such a big deal.
It’s also why I think we’re entering a new phase of Bachelor trips. We’ve spent years starting our days at Sunrise because it worked so well for our boys. Now I think they’re both ready for us to start at the main base more often and use that as the jumping-off point for exploring the mountain.
That’s what I mean when I say Bachelor grows with a family. Our kids could start small without quickly outgrowing the terrain. Now that they’re stronger skiers, more and more of the mountain becomes part of our day.
Now that they’ve further developed in their skills, we’re taking that family ski experience overseas this December when we return to Chamonix, France, with our boys.
What Our Bachelor Ski Days Actually Look Like
Photo by Family Fun Money.
We almost always stay in Sunriver and usually try to leave the house around 7:45 a.m. We’ll make breakfast, sometimes pack lunches, load the skis into our Yakima rack and throw the boots and everything else into the car. Everyone gears up once we reach the mountain.
After enough years of doing this, we have our little routines. One of them is checking for gloves, goggles and helmets before pulling out of the driveway. Discovering a missing glove once you’re already at the mountain is both annoying and potentially expensive.
The drive from Sunriver usually takes us around 45 minutes, although we’re obviously not trying to set any speed records when the roads are covered with snow. We’ve traditionally parked near Sunrise Lodge. Getting there reasonably early makes life easier because there’s nothing particularly fun about ending up far away and carrying a family’s worth of ski equipment across the parking area.
Thankfully, the boys can carry their own gear now. That is an underrated parenting milestone.
Once we’re there, we’ll use the bathroom, rent an $8 daily locker for backpacks or whatever else we don’t want to carry, get our skis on and head out. We’ll usually take a couple of warm-up runs before deciding where we want to go. These days that can mean Cloudchaser, Pine Marten or, inevitably, my oldest starting his campaign to get me onto Summit.
We’re generally skiing around 9:30 and stop around 3:30. We’ve never been a family that feels like we have to ski from the moment the lifts open until they shut down to justify the price of the ticket. If everyone is having fun, we’ll keep going. If we’re wet, cold or the boys have had enough, we’ll call it.
We’ve skied through some pretty miserable conditions over the years, including rain, and eventually you learn that forcing another two hours of skiing isn’t necessarily getting your money’s worth.
By the time we’re back in the car, everyone is usually done anyway. Snacks come out, the radio goes on and the car gets surprisingly quiet. Everyone can finally relax and maybe close their eyes.
Except the driver, who still has 45 minutes to go.
What a Mt. Bachelor Trip Costs Our Family
There’s no way around this part: skiing is expensive.
Our March 2026 trip gives a pretty good example, although it wasn’t a completely typical Bachelor trip for us. We were traveling with my wife’s sister and her family, splitting a house and spending a little more than usual for convenience.
We bought adult three-out-of-five-day lift tickets, and the tickets for our family of four cost $660, including two “Kids Ski Free” tickets available through Bachelor’s program that season. We own our skis, boots, helmets and other equipment, so we didn’t have rental costs. Our half of the house was $768, I’d estimate we spent around $50 on gas, and we paid $24 for daily lockers over our three ski days.
We also bought lunch on the mountain all three days, which is unusual for us. With eight people skiing on different schedules, including one child in full-day lessons, it was simply easier. Our family of four spent just under $300 on those lunches, including some beer or wine for the adults.
That puts the major expenses I can account for at about $1,802.
That’s not the total cost of the trip. It doesn’t include groceries we bought for the house or meals we ate out in Sunriver, so we spent more than $1,802 overall. It’s also important context that we already owned our equipment and had two Kids Ski Free tickets. Add four paid lift tickets, rentals and lessons, and the math changes quickly.
Our more typical Bachelor trip looks a little different. When we go with my parents, we’ll often cook essentially every meal at the house and pack lunches for the mountain. Owning our equipment also saves us from having to add a rental bill every time we ski.
Over the years, we’ve generally rented directly at Bachelor when we needed equipment because the convenience mattered to us. If we needed to rent equipment for an entire family today, I’d at least look at the difference between renting in town and renting on the mountain. Kids’ rental gear can be finicky, though. A boot that feels perfectly comfortable inside can suddenly become the worst boot ever invented once a child starts skiing. Being able to swap something without leaving the mountain has value.
We’ve also generally bought multi-day lift tickets and, when our schedule allows it, skied during the week. For years, Bachelor’s Kids Ski Free offers have been a significant savings for us. Our oldest is now aging out of those programs, which means the math on future trips is changing again.
That’s one thing I’d want another family to understand before planning a Bachelor trip: look at the whole ski-day cost. Tickets are only the beginning if you’re also adding rentals, lessons and food for everyone.
The Lunch Decision Says a Lot About How We Spend
Photo by Family Fun Money.
If you ask me where I’d spend more money at Bachelor these days, my answer might be lunch.
If you ask me where I’d save money, my answer might also be lunch.
Most trips, we make sandwiches at the house and bring fruit, snacks and a little candy or cookies. We’ll sometimes buy drinks for the boys at the lodge. It’s not particularly exciting, but it keeps the cost down—especially when you’re multiplying every purchase by four people over several ski days.
But as the boys have gotten older, I’ve become more willing to pay for convenience. There’s something pretty nice about not making sandwiches before leaving the house, not hauling lunch up the mountain, and not dealing with a backpack full of food. We can ski until we’re hungry, walk inside and eat something hot.
The boys also like buying lunch a lot more than eating another sandwich we made that morning.
On our March trip, we ate at Pine Marten Lodge several times. The views are great, and we’ve found it can feel less crowded than eating at the base around peak lunch time. We’ve also eaten plenty of lunches at Sunrise Lodge, and the outdoor Sun Bar is a fun place for lunch or après-ski when the weather cooperates.
I’m not suddenly going to start buying every meal on the mountain. My cheap side isn’t going anywhere. But I can see us splitting the difference more often—packing lunch one day and buying it the next.
That’s really the kind of spending decision we try to make on family trips. I don’t want to spend more just because something is available, but I’m increasingly willing to spend when it makes the experience noticeably easier or better for all of us.
Lessons, Weather and a Few Things We’ve Learned Along the Way
Photo by Family Fun Money.
I taught our boys primarily because I’ve skied most of my life and felt comfortable doing it, but we’ve supplemented that with professional lessons over the years, including at Bachelor.
One of my favorite lesson stories happened when my oldest was around 11. He was scheduled for what was supposed to be a group lesson, but the weather was awful. It was raining, the rest of us were wet and cold, and we were pretty much finished for the day.
He wasn’t.
He insisted on going to his lesson. Apparently everyone else had more sense because nobody else showed up, and his group lesson essentially turned into a private one. He had a great time while the rest of us stayed inside the lodge.
Our 7-year-old nephew also spent our March trip in full-day lessons while the rest of us skied. That’s another benefit we’ve come to appreciate. Even if you know how to teach a child yourself, lessons can give the rest of the family time to explore parts of the mountain that aren’t appropriate for a beginner.
Weather is another thing we’ve learned to work around rather than obsess over. We’ve skied Bachelor in beautiful sunshine, snow, wind and rain. The forecasts have generally given us a reasonable idea of what we’re getting into. What I pay particular attention to is the wind and the temperature around freezing.
Rain is the worst. A few degrees can be the difference between skiing in snow and spending the day getting soaked.
Wind can also feel very different depending on where you are. We’ve gotten out of the car into strong wind, found much calmer conditions lower on the mountain and then encountered something completely different higher up. Summit is the obvious place where conditions matter most.
For years, Summit wasn’t relevant to our family because the boys weren’t going up there anyway. We could have a fantastic Bachelor day without caring whether it opened. That’s changed as they’ve gotten better.
When Summit is open on a clear bluebird day, though, it’s one of my favorite places to be. We had one of those days in March, with visibility that seemed to go forever. My oldest and I went up together, and it was spectacular.
We’ve also learned to pay attention to crowds, especially around areas with a lot of families and developing skiers. We’ve had a few near misses with people skiing faster than I’d like around the boys. I’ve never thought of Bachelor as unsafe, and that’s certainly not unique to this mountain, but it’s something I’m more aware of as a parent than I ever was as a kid.
Why Sunriver Is Part of Our Bachelor Trip
at Sunriver. Photo by Family Fun Money.
For us, a Bachelor trip isn’t complete without Sunriver.
Bend is a great city, but Sunriver feels like we’ve gone on vacation. There’s the Village, restaurants and Goody’s—an ice cream and candy store I visited as a kid and now take my own kids to. It’s another one of those little traditions that has carried from one generation to the next.
We’ve repeatedly stayed at Stoneridge Townhomes because the location and setup work well for our family. We’re close to the Village and Country Store, there’s enough room for everyone, and when there’s snow on the ground the kids have space outside to play.
Just as importantly, we have a kitchen.
We live on the west side of the Cascades, so we’ll often place a grocery pickup order at Fred Meyer in Bend before we leave home. We drive over the mountains, grab the groceries in Bend and then continue south to Sunriver. When we’re with my parents, we’ll often cook essentially every meal at the house. When we’re traveling with another family, we’ll usually rotate dinner responsibilities.
It keeps the food budget under control, but it’s also just easier. We don’t have to find a restaurant for a big group after everyone has been skiing all day, and we know we’ll have food the kids actually want to eat.
Sunriver also gives us plenty to do when we’re not skiing, which matters because we don’t normally ski every day of a longer trip. If we’re skiing three or four days, we like having a day off somewhere in the middle. The boys can go to the pool at SHARC, wander around the Village, play in the snow or just hang around the house. My wife and I are also pretty happy if the house has a hot tub waiting after a ski day.
For us, that combination is what makes the trip work. Bachelor is where we ski. Sunriver is where the rest of the vacation happens.
Mt. Bachelor Isn’t a Luxury Ski Vacation—and That’s Fine With Us
Photo by Family Fun Money.
I think this is one of the most important things to understand about Bachelor.
If you’re picturing a slopeside luxury resort with ski-in/ski-out accommodations and an entire vacation built around resort amenities, that’s not really the experience we’re going there for. There’s no lodging on the mountain, so we’re driving there every morning and driving back to Sunriver every afternoon.
We’ve never minded that because skiing is the reason we’re there.
That’s where I think Bachelor really works for families like ours. The kids don’t have to be expert skiers, but the family needs to want to ski or snowboard. There’s enough beginner terrain to learn, enough room to progress, and eventually enough mountain to keep increasingly adventurous kids interested.
If skiing were just one activity we wanted to squeeze into a larger luxury winter vacation, I might look at the trip differently.
But that’s never been what Bachelor is to us.
Is Mt. Bachelor Worth the Money for Our Family?
Absolutely.
That doesn’t mean it’s cheap. Our March 2026 trip had about $1,802 in major expenses that I can account for, plus groceries and meals away from the mountain. We owned all our equipment and received two Kids Ski Free tickets, so another family’s cost could look very different.
It’s also not especially convenient for us. The drive is roughly four hours, which makes Bachelor difficult to justify as a casual weekend ski trip once we add lodging and everything else.
But four hours away also feels like we’ve gone somewhere completely different.
We have Sunriver. We have Goody’s. We have our routines. I have runs I remember from childhood. My boys have the places where they learned. My oldest and I now have Summit. And after years of hauling gear, teaching snowplows and stopping whenever the youngest needed a break, we’re finally at the stage where all four of us can spend most of the day skiing together.
That’s why Mt. Bachelor is worth the money for our family. The skiing has worked for us at every age, and the mountain has grown with our family.
When the boys were little, that meant beginner terrain and a lot of patience. Now it means longer days, more of the mountain and occasionally standing near the top of Summit wondering how the kid I once taught to snowplow got up there with me.
Maybe someday I’ll be the grandparent helping another generation learn.
That would be pretty amazing.
And if it happens, I already know one piece of advice I’ll give them:
Don’t miss the turn into Dilly Dally Alley.
