We arrived at Mt Hood with expectations that all the Mt Hood ski areas would be a bit dinky and far inferior to the main high profile ski resorts in western US. Sure Mt Hood Meadows doesn’t have a slopeside village so it’s very different to the cookie cutter destination USA ski resorts, and it attracts a mostly local crowd from Portland and surrounds, but it’s a very well established ski resort with good infrastructure and a variety of terrain. We came away pretty stoked that we’d visited Mt Hood, especially considering our timing was pretty good.

The pre-storm weather wasn’t so kind on our first day and it was blowing hard like we’d heard is somewhat commonplace at Mt Hood. Not much of the resort was open, but the place was deserted and we had the groomed runs mostly to ourselves. It snowed overnight and we lucked into a glorious powder day for our 2nd day. It was mid-week and it wasn’t ridiculously busy (of course it’s all relative!). Some of the regulars were commenting that it was very quiet, possibly because there’d been a few powder days the previous week and the locals had used up their “powder clause days”. The patrollers were progressively opening up terrain, so thankfully we got a few goes at scoring freshies in different zones. We didn’t get to check out all the terrain, but we were impressed with what we saw because it was quite diverse. Some of the expert terrain wasn’t that challenging, whilst other lines were definitely worthy of their double black status despite being short. The powder quality was reasonably good and just a fraction on the heavy side.

We’d heard that lots of people complain about the lack of space and options for dining (they’re about to expand further), yet it seemed to us that the day lodges were very very quiet. It gave us an insight into how insane the place must get on weekends! We had a great meal at the Alpenstube and the staff we encountered at the restaurant and across the resort were incredibly friendly.

We stayed at the Inn at Cooper Spur at Cooper Spur Mountain Resort. We loved that it really felt like we’d got away from it all in this little retreat, despite Portland being rather close by. The small tavern at Cooper Spur was lovely, the meals were made with love, and there were plenty of local beers to sample.

See our USA ski resort ratings to see how Mt Hood Meadows compares to other ski areas.
See our video here