Keala Kai Polendey with the stylish send. Photo: Screenshot
Here’s an odd one: how often does closing day trigger a “winter is coming” froth? Weird, right? But that’s the case with Mt. Hood’s Timberline Lodge, which is nearing its August 18 closing day — basically shutting down long enough for employees to rest up for about half a football season, and then dive right back into winter in the Pacific Northwest.
Thanks to its Palmer Chairlift, Timberline regularly has North America’s longest ski season each year. While the rest of the family owned operation fires up its lifts during the “normal” winter months, the Palmer lift can’t start running until the spring. The chair sits at an elevation of 7,000 feet and reaches up to 8,500 feet on Mt. Hood, where true winter conditions make it inoperable. By March 17 of this year, however, Timberline opened up the Palmer lift for its typical spring-summer season and managed to log 153 days this year. When added on top of the December 2, 2023 opening day to start Timberline’s 2023-2024 season, locals scored a full 260 days of skiing and snowboarding.
And here’s another head scratcher: according to SnowBrains, Timberline hosts North America’s longest season without ever relying on man-made snow. In fact, while the seemingly late closing day is noteworthy, Timberline actually used to regularly open around Labor Day each year, which would add a two-month head start. With conditions changing globally over the years, however, that hasn’t been on the table for some time, according to Gordon Garlock, a ski instructor at Timberline for nearly five decades.
