Mt. Hood Meadows may have high speed access from bottom to top Saturday, the first time this season. With the series of storms, Cascade Express has been either in “Storm in Progress” or “Storm Recovery” this early season. And Shooting Star Express, damaged in a November windstorm, was repaired and cleared for service Friday evening. Today marks the first mild weather day that gives our mountain teams the best shot at opening the upper mountain.
Shooting Star
Meadows announced the Shooting Star high speed quad will begin daily operations Saturday. Repairs have been completed on the lift damaged during a November windstorm. Shooting Star offers some of the most popular intermediate and advanced terrain at Meadows which has been inaccessible so far this season. Star serves a dozen trails - two outer ridge lines with a bowl in between that collects a massive amount of snow.
Meadows CEO Matthew Drake praised the mountain crew’s efforts to get Star back in service, saying, “The geographical and weather challenges were considerable, but our team understood how important the Star lift and the terrain it accesses is to our guests. I am proud of the careful and deliberate approach used to put this lift back into safe service.” Drake noted that Star provides exceptional storm riding, and is usually able to operate in snow storms that can affect the resort’s upper high speed quads Cascade and Vista due to wind and visibility. “With all the snow we continue to receive, the riding on Star will be awesome!”
Cascade Express
Meadows highest express lift Cascade Express will begin operations as soon as storm recovery efforts are completed. It will require a huge storm recover effort since it has received an estimated ten or more feet of snow during this recent storm cycle. Cascade lifts passengers nearly 1400 vertical feet to the 7,300 foot level, and when it opens Meadows will have all six high speed quads in operation, providing high speed service from the bottom of Hood River Express (4500 foot level) to the top of Cascade (7300 foot level).