Sahale Lodge - our new 23,500-square-foot skier services, restaurant and meeting center - is on schedule to open later this month. It’s always a race to the finish - especially when the lodge serves so many different kinds of purposes. The video above is a highlight reel, but the one below takes time to tour each level and provide more information about what makes Sahale special.
We took a quick tour of the building with Chairman and CEO Matthew Drake, General Manager Greg Pack, and VP of Resort Operations Jeremy Riss to get a good feel for the new building. And while there are still finishing touches being completed, the highlight video shows the great potential of this awesome space.
The first floor will house our Meadows Learning Center and equipment rental center, offering a much more streamlined flow for those purchasing lessons or rentals in advance on to the slopes. The rental center features a boot fitting bridge that will provide a better fit for comfort and performance, and rental guests will pick up their pre-teched skis and snowboards outside the building. Sahale is much more centrally located to the Buttercup beginner terrain - a vast improvement over previous years when the rental center was located on the far north side of the North Lodge.
There is also a sizable space for our Children’s Learning Center, however, this season, all Adult and Children’s lessons will be meeting on the snow.
The second floor of Sahale delivers 10,000 square feet of dining and meeting space, featuring three new restaurants: Wildflowers Cafe, the Sahale Grill, and the Bullwheel Bar. The spacious Waterfall Room brings the outside in with large two-story windows and views of the mountain. The Sahale Deck will accommodate outdoor seating and dining while also offering an awesome view of the peak of Mt. Hood. There are two fireplaces on the second floor for comfort and atmosphere.
The building was built sustainably, and features a unique roof snow melt collection and drainage system, which is channeled to a rain garden to recharge the wetlands next to the building. Sahale was built entirely on previously disturbed land, and the rain garden will actually filter runoff before being discharged to the storm runoff system.
We’ll add more about the building over the coming days, but Sahale is just one more reason why we are excited about the upcoming season!