Mt. Bachelor Spent the Summer Storm-Proofing Northwest. Is a Super El Niño the Winter That Tests It?

For years, the communication and fiber lines that run the Northwest chairlift hung in the air above treeline. Rime ice built up on them during storms and pulled on the cables. Sometimes it tore them loose from their connection points, which tripped a fault and stopped the lift until maintenance crews could go up and find the problem. Most of those lines now sit underground, from the top terminal down to Tower 15.

That trench is a good summary of Mt. Bachelor's 2026-27 season. The big work this year adds no new acres and no new chair. It goes into the hours after a storm, when Northwest has usually been the lift skiers wait on. The winter forecast is for a record-strength El Niño, with storms that could be huge, or warm, or both. So this is shaping up to be the season that shows whether the work paid off.

What changed on Northwest, and what stayed

If you ride Northwest in December, it will look almost the same. The resort kept the existing towers, terminals, chairs and haul rope. The upgrade goes into the parts you can't see: utility power, the electric motor, the auxiliary power unit and all the interior equipment. Once the work is finished, the lift's operating system will mirror Skyliner's. In its May 22 report, The Bulletin wrote that resort officials framed the project around lift reliability, storm recovery and access to the expert terrain Northwest serves.

Almost every item on the work list goes after a specific way storms used to keep the lift closed:

• Buried lines. About 5,000 feet of communication and fiber line, moved out of the rime ice that caused faults.
• A night-drive system. It can run the lift with no chairs attached while Northwest is closed, which keeps ice from building up on the haul rope during storms and freeze events.
• A semi-enclosed chair barn. The new "park rail" is a steel structure big enough to hold every chair, so crews have less storm recovery and snow removal to do before the lift can open.
• A maintenance garage at the base terminal. Crews can test and repair carriers on-site instead of hauling equipment to off-site shops.
• New operator facilities. That includes a two-story operator and patrol dispatch shack at the top terminal.

In Mt. Bachelor's project updates, Director of Mountain Operations Dustin Smith said, "These upgrades are going to make a huge difference for our guests and operations teams." As of the September update, the buried conduit was in and backfilled, the aerial section on the lower half of the line was finished, and the new power infrastructure was complete. Crews were getting ready to crane in the new electric motor, drive, diesel backup motor and fuel tank. The resort said the project was on track for "a more reliable, efficient and storm-ready Northwest chairlift for the 26/27 season."

That phrase, "storm-ready," is the key to this upgrade. Its value depends on what kind of winter shows up.

The winter forecast is a Super El Niño

The Climate Prediction Center's October 8 ENSO discussion keeps an El Niño Advisory in place and puts the odds of a strong to very strong event through January to March 2027 at more than 83 percent. The October 19 update kept the same advisory and the same odds.

Ordinary El Niño winters have a weak record at Bachelor. In a September 29 post going through its own data, the resort counted four El Niño seasons since 2010, which averaged 355 inches of snow. The nine La Niña seasons in that stretch averaged 462 inches. The Super El Niño years look different. Bachelor has had three on record, 1982/83, 1997/98 and 2015/16, and they averaged 427 inches of snow and 204 operating days. That's about two feet above the resort's current annual average.

Even so, a three-season average hides a lot of spread:

Sources: Mt. Bachelor's historical snowfall post and The Source Weekly for the 1997/98 figure.

The 1982/83 season opened on November 12. In 1997/98, a Super El Niño came in below average. The worst season of the past 16 was last winter, 2025/26, at 206 inches. The resort's own conclusion is modest: three seasons is a small sample, and "Nobody knows for sure what this winter will bring."

Why a warm, wet winter is the real test

The climate modeling explains why this matters for Northwest. In The Source Weekly's October 1 report, Oregon state climatologist Larry O'Neill pointed to simulations from the 2025 Oregon Climate Assessment. In those simulations, strong El Niño years usually brought drier winters, while very strong ones were "significantly wetter than normal and comparable to those during Strong La Niñas." Wetter means more storm cycles, and storm cycles are when Northwest has tended to stay closed.

O'Neill's caveats point in the same direction. The Source reported a 75 percent chance this event will be stronger than any since 1950, which puts it outside the historical record. He also told the paper that atmospheric rivers "could put a damper on snowpack if mountain temperatures aren't cold enough to turn precipitation to snow." NOAA's October 15 winter outlook for December 2026 through February 2027 favors warmer-than-average temperatures across the Pacific Northwest. NOAA also notes that its seasonal outlooks don't forecast snowfall totals.

"We could have a really wide variety of outcomes here."

Larry O'Neill, Oregon state climatologist, speaking to The Source Weekly

Line up those outcomes against the Northwest work list and the list makes sense. Heavy, repeated snow is what the chair barn is for. Freeze events that coat the haul rope are what the night drive is for. Wet storms that rime the upper mountain are what the buried fiber is for. Any of these winters calls on at least one of the upgrades, and a messy mix would call on all of them. A cold, dry winter would test none of it.

The same logic at West Village

The other big project finishing this fall is at the base. The Wood Fuel Energy Facility in West Village burns wood byproducts from Forest Service-approved restoration and wildfire mitigation work in the Deschutes National Forest. That material would usually be burned in open slash piles. At its center is a 1,200 kW biomass boiler. When fully connected, it will send heat through underground piping to Ski Patrol, West Village Lodge, Mountain Gateway, Todd Lake, the Bachelor Butte Administration Building and the West Village base area snowmelt system.

Mt. Bachelor's October 13 update says construction is finished. The plant is already tied in to four of those buildings, with the Todd Lake Building connection scheduled within a couple of weeks, and it's expected to start running in December 2026. The resort expects it to cut propane use by about 150,000 gallons a year, more than 90 percent, which means fewer fuel trucks driving up the Cascade Lakes Highway in winter. It's a sustainability project, but it also helps in a storm. Heat for the base snowmelt system will come from a plant on site instead of from propane deliveries.

Before the first chair turns

According to The Bulletin's September 22 report, the resort is targeting Friday, December 4 for opening day. It could open earlier if there's at least two feet of snow and a forecast for freezing temperatures or more snow. Paid parking and the Cascades East Transit mountain shuttle haven't posted 2026-27 details yet. The resort's parking page still shows last season's dates, and CET's winter service page says the route ended on April 20, 2026. Check both again before your first drive up.

Last winter's 206 inches gave Northwest few storms to recover from. If the modeling for very strong El Niño winters holds, this one could be much wetter. Either way, the first big storm cycle of the season will show what this summer's work changed, on the morning after, when Northwest either starts running or stays closed.

For some buyers, how quickly they can get from the front door to the Cascade Lakes Highway on a storm morning is part of choosing a home in Bend, and it's a question Karen Wilson is glad to talk through. If the drive to Mt. Bachelor matters in your own search, schedule a private consultation and we can look at how it fits.