Meg Lane, 13, and from left, her mom Page Lane, 47, both of Zurich, Switzerland, and Meg’s grandfather Don Wieche, 77, of Woodstock, Vt., ride the Sunrise Chair in the rain Tuesday afternoon at Mt. Bachelor ski area. They are each wearing plastic bags that read “Good To The Last Drop” over their jackets.

Nature’s fury added up to a dismal holiday period for Central Oregon’s top two ski areas, which reported a heavy drop in visitors for what’s considered their busiest time of year.

Mt. Bachelor and Hoodoo ski areas, already dealing with a late start to the season, were beset over the holidays with weather conditions ranging from poor visibility to ice and howling wind.

On Tuesday, it was freezing fog.

“You would not want to be on Pine Marten right now,” Alex Kaufman, the director of marketing for Mt. Bachelor, said Tuesday. “The skiing surface is covered in ice, it is extremely windy. It is not a day to ski. The higher the elevation, the less pleasurable the surface is.”

Overall, the unpredictable weather marred a holiday period that was already expected to be slower this year, ski area officials said.

Central Oregon’s lodging community reported occupancy declines ranging from 10 to 30 percent over the holiday period, said Alana Audette, the president and CEO of Central Oregon Visitors Association, which promotes tourism for the region.

COVA’s survey asked the region’s resort, hotel and motel, vacation home and condominium operators if business was up or down from last year’s Christmas-through-New-Year’s period.

“Visitor volume was down dramatically,” Audette said.

Audette cited a triple whammy of factors for Mt. Bachelor’s slow start: the late start to the season, heavy snowfall close to the holidays that made travel difficult and the decline in the economy, she said.

“I am truly heartbroken for (Mt. Bachelor),” Audette said. “A lot of these factors are out of their control.”

Other Oregon resorts, coming off a 2007-08 season that set a record with roughly 1.95 million visitors, also were hurt by road closures, heavy snowfall in Portland and icy conditions on the slopes.

The bad weather, even more than the recession, contributed to a 16 percent and 37 percent drop in skier and snowboarder visits, respectively, at Mt. Bachelor and Hoodoo during the holiday period, ski area officials said.

Since Mt. Bachelor opened Dec. 13, there have been only five days when the mountain was not fogged in or snowed in, Kaufman said, explaining why at least one of the ski area’s lifts was closed on all but one day during the holiday period from Christmas through Jan. 4.

Mt. Bachelor is trying to be frank about its weather assessments, giving visitors a clearer picture of actual conditions on the mountain before they drive up, Kaufman said.

On New Year’s Day, the ski area’s Web site, www.mtbachelor .com, advised skiers and snowboarders to stay home and watch football.

“The next day looked good — we advised them to try us tomorrow,” Kaufman said. “We would rather have people make decisions based on facts.”

On Tuesday afternoon, the Web site cautioned visitors that today would be another day of freezing rain and high winds.

“Consider yourself somewhat hardcore if you plan to ski in it,” it read on the conditions section of the Web site.

Conditions are expected to improve significantly by Thursday, according to the site.

Maintaining lifts

Lift closures have mostly been weather-related, Kaufman said. On nicer days, some lifts can remain closed as the ski area cleans up after a storm, he said.

“Those days are extremely key for avalanche control and lift maintenance,” he said. “It is part of the reason why Outback (Express chairlift) and Northwest (Express chairlift) are not open on (some of the) days when we have (good) visibility. After a three- to four-day storm cycle, it can take a day to get the backside chairs reopened.”

One exception was a roughly two-hour shutdown of Rainbow chairlift Saturday afternoon, which required offloading passengers and resulted from an electrical problem, Kaufman said.

Hoodoo also experienced a bevy of lift problems caused by wind and ice, said Matthew McFarland, general manager.

On six of 12 days during the holiday period, at least one of the ski area’s five lifts was closed, McFarland said.

The ski area, which had 18,660 skiers and snowboarders from Dec. 20 to Dec. 31, 2007, had only 11,941 visitors during the same period in 2008, McFarland said.

“This year, we had rain on many key days and lots of dismal snow conditions,” he said. “We were getting 1 foot of snow, but 80 to 100 mph winds. Obviously, if you have winds where you can only run one to two lifts, people are not going to want to ski.”

Like Mt. Bachelor, Hoodoo was at or above last year’s numbers on good weather days, McFarland said.

“If the rest of the season goes like this, it will definitely be a problem,” he said. “We had no problems (attracting business) on good weather days.”

Elsewhere

Nationally, the picture is much the same for the nation’s ski resorts.

Weather was the main factor in determining ski resorts’ success over the holidays. While some ski areas reported holiday visitation of up to 40 percent more than the previous year, those with adverse weather conditions reported soft business, according to a survey by the National Ski Areas Association released Tuesday.

In Oregon, ski areas were faced with adverse road conditions, including a shutdown of parts of U.S. Highway 26 near Sandy on New Year’s Day and 80 mph to 100 mph winds on other days.

Extreme weather atop Mount Hood and in Portland over the holidays kept many people at home, said Dave Tragethon, marketing director and spokesman at Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort.

“We are very early into the season, but we’re about a month behind last season” in terms of visitation, said Tragethon, declining to release visitor numbers. “When weather has been normal and people have been able to get out of their driveway, we have had average to above-average visitation. But the extreme weather has either prevented people from getting to the mountain or the conditions on the mountain weren’t very accommodating.”

At Willamette Pass resort east of Eugene, the harsh weather conditions were not a factor because the ski area is heavily forested and protected from the winds, said Randy Rogers, the director of experience for the mountain.

The ski area, which opened Dec. 19, is keeping pace with last year, Rogers said. Willamette Pass had more than 2,000 skiers on Saturday, a 50 percent increase from the first Saturday in 2008, he said.

“In this (economic) climate, we feel that’s a win,” he said.

Holiday ski numbers

Mt. Bachelor ski area reported a 16 percent drop in ski visitors this year, mainly caused by weather disruptions.

The ski area, which has a 99-inch base at West Village Lodge, warned skiers and snowboarders Tuesday of freezing rain conditions, which are expected to continue today.

Hoodoo ski area, which opened Dec. 20, posted a 37 percent drop in visitor numbers through Dec. 31 compared with the same period in 2007. The ski area, which has a 63-inch base, reported rainy and icy conditions Tuesday.

Willamette Pass Ski Resort, which has a base ranging from 48 inches at the lodge to more than 8 feet on its northern slopes, has been on par with last year’s visitor numbers, ski area officials say.

The ski resort is relatively protected from high winds due to its heavily forested nature.