The
Beginning
 The U.S. Forest Service advertisement of the prospectus
in a local newspaper caught the eye of Franklin G. Drake,
head of a Portland based construction company. A review of
the prospectus and several trips to the proposed permit area
excited Drake’s imagination concerning the potential
for a quality regional year-around resort. The variety of
the terrain, the beauty of the alpine meadows providing natural
open spaces to the tall stands of timber, and the wide open
untimbered spaces above the tree line, provided a near perfect
landscape for an outstanding ski area. Drake assembled a consulting
team, prepared a feasibility study, and decided to compete
for the award of the 30-year U.S. Forest Service permit. Once
the Drake proposal was in rough draft form, he involved a
hand full of his friends who had the same love for outdoor
recreation in the formation of a limited partnership.
On March 2, 1966, Drake submitted the partnership proposal
to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Region
6. In late April of 1966, the U.S. Forest Service awarded
the 30-year permit to Mt. Hood Meadows Oreg., Ltd. Lloyd Gilmore,
supervisor of the Mt. Hood National Forest, announced that
Drake’s bid was chosen, “In the belief that both
the immediate and long range benefits for the using public
would be better provided by the development plans of Mt. Hood
Meadows Oreg., Ltd.”
 The remainder of 1966 was spent in planning and designing
the buildings, and selecting the chair lift manufacturers.
In June of 1967, when the snow had receded to the point that
Drake’s crews under the direction of Barney Metzger
could plow the snow off of the building sites, construction
commenced on a 12 hour a day schedule. The two chair lifts
installed that summer were the first to have been installed
by flying them in place with a helicopter.
During the summer and winter of 1967, Drake put together
the team of professionals who were to operate the ski resort
on a day-to-day basis for the partnership.
Over 200 invited guests and dignitaries attended the opening
ceremonies, which included Gretchen Fraser, America’s
first gold medal winner in the 1948 Olympics, who made the
inaugural run with a 1,061 foot vertical drop through the
finish gate to officially open the new ski slopes to the public.
The next day the area was open to the public under clear,
sunny skies. Because Highway 35 had not been completed in
time for the 67/68 winter season, Meadows only operated on
the weekends that first season.The winter of 68/69 was one
of the deepest snow falls on record - almost burying sections
of the Blue Chair.
By January of 1969 the Meadows was operating Wednesday through
Sunday, and then on February 17, 1969, the Meadows went to
a 7 day a week schedule. The current operating schedule includes
not only 7 days a week, but also 5 nights a week.
The 70s - A decade of ski school
 Three chairlifts (Blue, Yellow, Red plus a T-Bar and two Rope
Tows) strong entering the 70s, Meadows focused on developing
a local market with weekend and midweek lift, lesson and bus
packages. Recognizing that the future of the sport was reliant
on families embracing skiing as their winter sport of choice,
Meadows promoted multi-week programs delivered by busses.
Under the direction of Rene’ Farwig, ski school director
from Hood River,
Rene’ Farwig Meadows first director of ski school organized
bus groups to visit Meadows in the late 1960s, usually coordinated
by “moms” who organized a day trip to the mountain
on the weekend, inviting their children’s classmates
or friends from church or the scout troop. But in the 70s,
Meadows representatives met with school administrators and
organized formal trips to the mountain on weekends. Many of
the schools organized ski race teams, and selected Meadows
as their training facilities. By 1975, Mt. Hood Meadows hosted
over 15,000 school-aged children in its weekend programs,
and it was not uncommon to see 70 busses in the parking lot
on a Saturday. But the multi-week bus program also attracted
another market - housewives - many of whom were the mothers
of the weekend kids participants. Remember, at this time there
were very few two income families, it was the wife’s
responsibility to take care of the home and the family, while
the father earned the income. The midweek program became known
as “Mom’s day off” and soon grew to more
than 40 busses a week coming to Meadows Tuesdays, Wednesdays
and Thursdays.
Now more than 20 years later, these programs continue to
thrive as Meadows hosts an average of 120 busses each week
through these programs and group ski trips, reducing the amount
of vehicles which would be traveling to the mountain each
winter. Approximately one out of seven visitors to Meadows
arrives by bus - with up to 26% arriving by bus on peak days
- which has a very positive environmental effect. Three new
lifts were built in the 70s - including the Texas chairlift,
which serviced the most popular skiing terrain in the Northwest
according to readers of the Oregonian. The Texas chair was
constructed in the summer of 1974, and took advantage of the
huge amount of wide open above tree line skiing which local
skiers had to travel outside of the region to find. The skiable
acreage nearly doubled with the new lift.
In 1977, Meadows constructed the Hood River Meadows chair,
the longest lift on the mountain. The lift provided access
to tree-lined trails protected from occasional harsh weather
which could affect the operation of higher lifts. It also
provided Meadows with a second base area, more conveniently
located to visitors driving from Hood River, and extended
the vertical footage of the resort to its present 2,777 feet.
Having become somewhat of a mecca for learning, with the largest
ski school in the Northwest, Meadows constructed the Buttercup
lift in 1979, for beginner skiers. The gentle terrain and
easy accessibility to the base made Buttercup the ideal beginner
lift, and in the next 20 years approximately 150,000 skiers
and snowboarders would take their first chairlift ride on
Buttercup.
Under the direction of Renee Farwig, Meadows gained a worldwide
reputation in the 1970s for its summer race camps. Thanks
to consistently deep snowpack, Meadows would operate through
June and often into July, offering several week-long race
camps to teams throughout the country, and from around the
world. The U.S. Ski Team made Meadows its official summer
training site as Meadows featured a 6,000 foot downhill course
- thanks to the Texas lift. It was one of the few locations
in the Northern hemisphere which facilitated downhill training,
and attracted the fastest racers from around the world. The
80s - A decade of growth
You would think with 7 lifts, one of the most popular ski
schools in the country, a base lodge and plenty of parking,
Meadows could have cruised through the 80s without much change.
Wrong. Truth is, those amenities combined with the most varied
terrain of any ski resort in the Northwest made Meadows a
very popular place requiring further expansion of the resort.
In fact, the need to grow produced an expansion into what
has become the most sought after terrain among advanced skiers
in the Northwest - Heather Canyon It is the most well known
terrain in all of the Northwest, as close to extreme as any
resort has to offer. Heather Canyon - featuring sustained
30 degree slopes, near vertical pitches, rocky outcroppings
and expansive wide open skiing and snowboarding. Heather Canyon
following a fresh powdery snowfall is as close to heaven as
most skiers dare to come.
In 1984 Meadows debuted the Express - triple chair - constructed
side-by-side with the original Blue Chairlift to get the crowds
out of the base area as quickly as possible. And while the
new lift helped reduce lift lines outside, Meadows responded
to indoor crowding with the construction of the North Lodge
in 1985 - a 40,000 square foot lodge which provided five different
restaurant and bar operations, a “brown bag” eating
area, and a new state of the art ski rental facility, still
the largest in Oregon. The new lodge also accommodated “Sno-Blasters”
- a fully supervised ski program for grade schoolers. The
room hosted up to 700 Blasters each weekend, and has become
one of the premier youth skier development programs in the
country.
In 1985 Meadows also opened its slope-side Medical Center
providing the same medical care and treatment as one could
receive in a Portland emergency room. The Medical Center was
staffed by professional doctors, nurses and EMTs and boasted
state of the art technology, including an x-ray machine to
help doctors in their examination and diagnosis of injuries.
In 1988 Meadows added the Shooting Star lift a quad chairlift
which accessed the angular, undulating terrain bordering Heather
Canyon. The lift and the terrain it opened up followed an
entire space program theme, with trails named “Mercury”,
“Gemini”, “Apollo” and “Titan”.
The lift also provided a faster track to lower Heather Canyon,
which had its own celestial following.
The 90s - a decade of ecology and technology
 Upon Clay Simon’s retirement in the early 1990s, Dave
Riley was promoted from the position of Controller at Mt.
Hood Meadows Ski Resort to Vice President and General Manager.
While Mt. Hood Meadows had always been committed to preserving
and maintaining the environment in which it operates, it was
the 90s in which it became recognized as being on the leading
edge of these environmental issues. Meadows initiated a recycling
program, for everything from paper and cardboard to glass
and lubricants. Meadows worked with venders and suppliers
to reduce the amount of packaging materials brought to the
resort, and began printing most of its promotional materials
on recycled materials. The resort started a “trash bash”
program inviting season pass holders and other Meadows advocates
to participate in a day-long trash pick up day around the
mountain. And in 1996, Meadows received the prestigious “Silver
Eagle Environmental Award”, presented by the Skiing
Company, for its native wildflower revegetation program. Each
summer Meadows employees collect the seeds of grasses and
plants native to Mt. Hood to be replanted on Mt. Hood. Existing
plants are transplanted and hydroseeding native seeds combines
with a mixture of bio-stimulants, fertile fibers and tacifiers
takes place. The process is more expensive than traditional
seeding program using non-native plant or grass seeds, but
improves the bio-diversity of the unique mountain environment.
These native grasses and wildflowers establish stronger root
systems which promote soil conservation and water quality.
Meadows promotes the native wildflower revegetation effort
with a freestyle event called “Vegetate”. The
event has grown to become one of the nations premier events,
and continues to be independently run and promoted by Mt.
Hood Meadows. In its first three years, Vegetate attracted
more than 700 competitors and 20,000 spectators to the mountain,
and raised over $15,000 for the revegetation effort. The event
targets the youthful snowboarder market, people who are very
concerned about the environment, and vigorously support environmental
causes. Meadows also maintains a snowboard park and half pipe,
groomed with state of the art shaping machines
to provide the highest quality park features and half pipes
possible.
 Under Dave Riley's leadership, Meadows also initiated an extensive renovation and expansion
program - resulting in the upgrading of three existing lifts
to high speed quads and constructing the long awaited “Heather
Chairlift” which provided a fast and easy way out of
the canyon. In three successive years, Texas (replaced by
Cascade Express), the “Express” lift (replaced
by Mt. Hood Express) out of the base area, and the Hood River
Meadows (replaced by Hood River Express) lifts were replaced
with the latest technology - high speed quads. By 1995 the
resort’s entire 2,777 vertical feet was high speed accessible,
and ride times from the bottom to the top were reduced from
nearly an hour to 20 minutes. When the Hood River Express
was constructed, it was the fastest chairlift in the world,
transporting skiers and snowboarders more than a mile in less
than six minutes. Two seasons later, the Shooting Star quad
was upgraded to high speed capacity, giving skiers and snowboarders
unlimited access to the powder caches, steeps and snow fields
which made the lift so popular.
Throughout the 90s, Meadows has purchased an average of three
new snow grooming machines each year, demonstrating a commitment
to maintaining the highest quality surface conditions possible.
In 1996 the resort acquired its first winchcat (it now has two) - a grooming machine
with a winch which allowed it to groom steeper slopes such
as lower Heather Canyon, and the enticing bowls on the front
side of the mountain. This commitment to grooming has reignited
the love of the sport in some “ageless skiers”
who enjoy steeper but non-mogully trails. It also allows intermediate
skiers and snowboarders access to terrain they normally would
not be able to ski comfortably.
The commitment to new technology was also demonstrated when
Meadows opened a snowboard rental shop in 1995 - nearly doubling
its snowboard inventory. In 1997, Meadows unveiled a strategic
partnership with Rossignol with the purchase of all new shaped
ski equipment - over 1200 sets of equipment. In 1998 the resort
doubled its snowboard fleet with entirely new equipment, and
offered the newest innovations in snow play - mini skis and
snow shoes.
The 90s also signaled a change in the way Meadows marketed
itself. Having earned the reputation as being the premier
day ski area in the country, Meadows set its sites on becoming
a regional destination resort. Having invested in the latest
technologies, Meadows began to make improvements in services
expected at destination areas, such as daily KIDSKI programs,
slope-side dining in the exquisite Alpenstube and Sahallie
Room Restaurants, on hill quick service at the Mazot, a snowcat
skiing operation which added an additional 1,020 vertical
feet above Heather Canyon. With this addition Meadows has
an overall vertical drop of 3,797 feet - one of the longest
in the country. Meadows began promoting these world class
amenities with a resort ambassador who is also world class
- two-time Olympian and U.S. Ski Team veteran Monique Pelletier,
and later four-time Olympian AJ Kitt. In an effort to attract
destination visitors, Meadows has partnered with several Hood
River lodging establishments, offering a $25 lift ticket to
overnight guests.
By the end of the century Meadows had thoroughly
modernized itself with remarkable improvements at both of
its base areas. A new skier services center was constructed
at the bottom of the Hood River Express, housing lift ticket
sales, rest rooms, lockers, and the Renaissance Café.
The Nordic Center was also expanded. And then in the summer
of 1999, Meadows began a 44,000 square foot expansion and
remodeling project on the original South Lodge ú creating
a state-of-the-art ski and snowboard equipment rental center,
new ski shop and demo center facilities, a Concierge, racer
lunch room, staff facilities, a 16,000 square foot sun deck
and the most modern state-certified Day Care facility in Oregon.
The
21st Century and beyond
Having made the massive improvements to the resort infrastructure,
Mt. Hood Meadows set its sights on sustainability and continual
improvement. Already a charter member of the National Ski
Areas Association “Sustainable Slopes” Environmental
Charter, Meadows joined the Natural Step, an organization
which helps develop plans which balance the social, environmental
and economic aspects of a successful business operation. Meadows
has incorporated these principles into its operational decision
making as well as strategic planning. Meanwhile, the resort
embarked on an aggressive continual improvement guest service
training program, requiring daily briefings
with every staff member.
The resort also pursued new horizons with the acquisition
of the Inn at Cooper Spur, and Cooper Spur Ski Area on the
north side of Mt. Hood - combining the two and presenting
them as Cooper Spur Mountain Resort. The forested setting
with magnificent views of three mountains and close proximity
to boundless recreational pursuits is the ideal location for
vacationing, retreating and vision setting. Cooper Spur offers
log cabins, lodge condos and hotel rooms, a log home and a
restaurant. There is a sports court, hiking and cross country
trails and hot tubs. In the summer of 2002, Meadows installed
the first chair lift at Cooper Spur Ski Area, the
first in its 75 year history, and replaced the beginner
rope tow and tubing tows. The base lodge was improved with
an outdoor deck and operations were expanded to summer chairlift
rides and a deck BBQ on weekends and holidays. Back at Mt.
Hood Meadows prior to the 2003/2004 season, the company engineered
and constructed one of the world’s most technically
advanced in-ground SuperPipes located next to its Easy Rider
lift and made a large investment in “rails” to
embellish its popular freestyle terrain parks.
 The ski area has a long history of using “best management
practices” to properly minimize the short-term environmental
impact of construction, and uses a number of strategies to
restore construction sites long-term. Prior to proposing a
new project, the ski area first analyzes the landscape, looking
to minimize impacts on vegetation, wildlife habitat, water
quality, and reduce the potential for erosion. Then the projects
are constructed using sophisticated techniques such as helicopter
installation of chairlifts to reduce impacts on the landscape,
and re-vegetation with native wildflower and grasses with
seeds collected on site.
The management and staff at Meadows continue to strive towards
the company mission to “Create the highest quality mountain
resort experience in harmony with our natural environment,”
establishing Mt. Hood Meadows and Cooper Spur Mountain Resort
as leaders among outdoor recreation providers through managing
the businesses in a way that demonstrates their commitment
to environmental protection and stewardship while meeting
the expectations of the public.
In the four decades that Meadows has operated, its ownership
and shareholders have invested nearly $50 million into the
ski resort, which has grown skier visits from a few thousand
its very first year to more than 400,000 a season. This private
sector investment has created a high quality mountain recreational
experience for three generations of Oregonians adding
to the quality of life enjoyed by those who live, work and
play here, as well as providing a major economic stimulus.Notes
of Interest…
Franklin Drake’s family interest in the north side of
Mt. hood dates back to 1925 through his grandfather, Franklin
T. Griffith, a fact Drake only became aware of shortly after
the acquisition of Cooper Spur Inn and Cooper Spur Ski Area
in 2001. According to newspaper articles, Franklin T. Griffith
was part of a civic committee which purchased the Cloud Cap
Inn from Homer Rogers ú Kate McCarthy’s father.
The committee was headed by Chairman A.C. Ainsworth and members
including E.S. Collins, The Oregon Journal, W.B. Beebe and
L.R. Wheeler, all of Portland, E.O. Blanchard and Leslie Butler
of Hood River. Dorsey Smith would operate the old inn until
a new one could be built.
Did you know..
- Meadows was the first in the Northwest, and possibly in the
nation, when it installed an electronic reader board in Sandy,
Oregon, halfway from Portland to the mountain, which was controlled
by the mountain, giving updated weather and snow reports to
motorists as they traveled to the mountain. The Sandy reader
board was installed 30 years ago, and 10 years later Meadows
installed another electronic information sign on the Meadows
access road, also controlled from the Meadows mountain office.
- The Mt. Hood Meadows logo was designed by a renowned commercial
interior decorator, Joseph Cannell, also an original partner
in the Meadows partnership. The design was in the form of
a shield portraying a snow-covered mountain, the green of
the Douglas Fir trees, the clear blue sky, and a bright sun.
All of the Meadows advertising and marketing information carries
this logo. (Mr. Cannell’s son Steven is the very successful
producer/writer of a number of TV series, including the Rockford
files and the A-Team.
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