Mission Ridge, Washington

Mission Ridge is on the “dry” side of the Cascades near Wenatchee, which means much better weather than resorts on the west side of the range.  This is mostly a locals resort for people living in the Wenatchee Valley, but it is within a 3-hour drive of Seattle which makes it an option for the vast population there as well.

Stats

Real Vertical ?	2,190′, Rank: 59
Size	2,000 Acres, Rank: 44
Annual Snowfall ?	200″ claimed / Rank: 87
Lift Pods ?	4, Rank: 72
Distinct Trails ?	76, Rank: 52
Review Date	March, 2025
Number of visits	1
Our Rating	★★★
Resort website	https://missionridge.com

Mission Ridge Review

This place will always hold a special memory for us as the 100th ski resort we skied for the project.  The welcome we got from the employees at the base area was really warm with multiple groups posing for photos with our 100th resort sign and a visit with the general manager and marketing director.

Finding good conditions in Washington any time of year is a challenge with rain and heavy wet snow being very common.  We count ourselves lucky to have found conditions that were just transitioning from winter to spring with very good snow on the groomers and excellent coverage.  Off-piste had gone through a very common freeze-thaw cycle and that wasn’t really in-play when we were there, but we did ski some steep ungroomed mogul runs that were doable.

Located on the eastern side of the Cascade range, Mission receives only 200″ of snow on average. But based on what we saw driving over and stopping at Snoqualmie Pass, I think I’d take their 200″ over the super wet snow that Snoqualmie was dealing with.  We haven’t had good luck with snow conditions in Washington but I would feel better about planning a trip in advance to Mission as long as the base was in.

Lift pods

Mission Ridge has only 4 lift pods, which is a low number for a top 100 resort, but it does have 2,000 acres so there is a lot of ground to cover on 3 of them.  The 4th is a short chair that is strictly for access to the Wenatchee Express from the base and for novice skiers.

Chair 4

From the base area it’s easy to hop on Chair 4 for some consistent fall-line steeper groomers.  The vertical here is a decent 1,200′ and the grooming of the mostly intermediate runs is excellent.  Otto’s Outback looks like it would be a lot of fun on a powder day.  This chair is a very old Riblet center-bar machine built in 1971.  This is one of the biggest issues at Mission:  The lift fleet is very old.  We don’t mind old chairs, but the 3 center-bar doubles are not good for families with young kids, and they will have to start replacing some of those soon.

Wenatchee Express

This is the main lift at Mission and it’s a great one.  This is the only detachable they have.  It was built in 1987 and relocated to Mission from Skiwelt in Austria.  It’s very likely that we rode this lift in the early 2000’s when we visited that resort. With bubbles and soft seats it’s a comfortable ride even in cold temps and high winds, which makes it a great fit for that location because it is very windy at the top of the ridge.

This lift pod provides some great long winding intermediate groomers and we did many laps there.  Our favorite run on the mountain was North Bomber to Bomber Bowl.  It’s a roller with lots of interesting twists and turns.  There are also 13 distinct black and double-black runs off the top and in the middle of the bowl.  Those are all pretty short though.  We did take Johnson’s which is marked double-black and is pretty steep with big moguls.

Hike-to terrain

There are tons of runs that require a moderate hike from the Wenatchee Express up to Windy Ridge and Microwave.  Most of these are rated double-black and are fairly short, but you could probably string together about 1,900 vertical feet from the top of Bowl 4 down Otto’s Outback to the base which would be a big run.  That would be my plan on a powder day.

Chair 3

This lift is similar to 4 with a similar vertical drop and some nice intermediate groomers and a couple of steep but short mogul runs.  These were more of the same enjoyable winding runs that Chair 4 has, but maybe a little steeper.

For Beginners

Chair 1 is the lower mountain novice chair, but the terrain is a little too steep for true beginners.  There is really only one green run here: Mimi, which is unfortunately also crowded with everyone coming down from above to the base area.  For a resort that caters mostly to the local community, it’s awkward not having much terrain for people to learn how to ski on safely away from better skiers.  The owners would love to fix that problem and have a master plan to do it with a whole new lift, but there has been some opposition that has slowed or stopped that project thus far.  Hopefully they can get that worked out for the sake of the community.

Food and Lodges

We had lunch at the base area cafe with sit-down service and it was a small notch above average for a ski area.  It was also a good value compared with most ski resorts these days.

Where to stay

Wenatchee is really the only choice here, and it’s full of chain hotels so nothing special. There are some pretty good food options in town if you look for them though.  We had some great mexican food at Pollo Alegre and also found Petey’s Kitchen friendly and good.

An interesting thing about Wenatchee that we liked was the riverfront trail that runs about 15 miles around both sides of the Columbia river and across 2 bridges.  We did parts of this from our hotel both nights.  It’s mostly lit up and you can get an interesting view of the river at night with nobody around.

The good

• Much less rain than at any of the other resorts in Western Washington
• Summit to base snowmaking coverage
• Extensive grooming
• Great community vibe
• 2,190 vertical feet of night skiing which is huge and nearly unmatched anywhere

The bad

• Could use more natural snowfall
• Aging lift fleet with the youngest coming up on 40-years old

The bottom line

From the Good and Bad above you can see that there is not much to complain about at Mission.  It doesn’t stand out that far above our average resort on the list, but it’s a solid 3-star resort and was a great choice for our final resort of the project.  We even discussed the possibility of coming back some day to try the extensive night skiing.  It’s an easy flight from the Bay Area to Seattle and an easy drive from the Sea-Tac airport.