Images from a Timberline Mountain Bike Park
brochure. A lawsuit has stalled that
plan, but Mount Hood Meadows says
biking is on the upswing regardless.

Fun in the snow remains huge on Mount Hood. But there’s growing consensus that the mountain’s future is likely to be elsewhere.

With average snowpack levels ebbing and mountain biking booming in popularity, Mount Hood Meadows is reorganizing its team to emphasize this new market, among others.

The company recently dropped “ski resort” from its official logo. On Monday, it followed that up with an announcement of that three new company vice presidents have been tasked with focusing on new facilities, programs and staff for year-round — that is, non-snow — recreation.

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The Sandy Ridge MTB Trail System is one of the Mount Hood area’s many bright spots.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

WELCHES – The slopes south and west of Mount Hood could become Oregon’s next great bike tourism destination, Clackamas County leaders said Saturday at a half-day conference here in the old volcano’s foothills.

“We are tourism-driven,” said George Wilson, a director of the Villages at Mount Hood and the organizer of the event. “It’s our only industry.”

It’s also an industry that currently booms each summer and winter and slackens during the “shoulder seasons,” as fall and spring are sometimes called in the Mount Hood area.

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Riders scope out routes at Sandy Ridge, a popular trail-riding
destination built specifically for mountain biking.
(Photos © J. Maus/BikePortland)

Nobody in Oregon gets more of its tourist dollar from bikes than the Mount Hood region, and people in eastern Multnomah and Clackamas counties are taking notice.

Whatever happens in the controversy about a planned mountain bike park near Timberline Lodge, the area seems to be thinking more and more about biking. Consider a few elements:
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