Chuck's Page
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By Chuck Shepard August 18, 2008
Ten years ago when new ownership took over Hoodoo we promised you that you would see a new Hoodoo. Our slogan then was “Come Home to Hoodoo”. While I left it up to you do decide what this meant, what I hoped you would get from this is that we were about to restore Hoodoo to its previous glory and we hoped that the many of you who told us that you once skied at Hoodoo all the time would return to a place where you felt at home. And many of you have, in fact more people have visited us at Hoodoo in the last two years than the old Hoodoo had in six seasons in the 90s. Now though it might be time to say “Welcome to the new Hoodoo Mountain Resort”. I have been writing and talking about the importance of this year for a long time. When people asked me if we were going to make some improvement or change, my statement would always be “we are waiting for the Deschutes decision”. That decision has now been made. Hoodoo will be the concessionaire for the entire Deschutes Forest organized campgrounds. The Deschutes contains over 80 campgrounds and will account for almost half of what we currently manage during the summer. It will also give us a starting block for further anticipated expansion into the recreation business. If we had not gotten this concession it would most likely have ended our campground company, now it has given us a firm foundation for the future of the summer company. And the summer company will give us a firm foundation for the ski company. We are not waiting for anything anymore. A decision will be made shortly about putting in the Alpine Slide or Zip line at the resort. We already have permission for both. We will start talking seriously about possible expansion in the winter as well. We already have a new area approved as part of the Master Plan. Right now we are anticipating opening a few more runs starting at the top of Blue Valley and ending around the top of the Easy Rider Lift. Mostly this will give us some better green runs, but it might give us some interesting terrain for more advanced skiers as well. We also anticipate expanding into more campgrounds. Next summer we will be managing all the Deschutes from Hwy 58 north to the Madras area. We manage most of the Willamette National Forest, again from Hwy 58 on the west side of the Cascades, north to Hwy 22 and the Hoodoo area. In Washington we manage from the north side of Mt. Rainer to the Canadian border, all on the west side of the Washington Cascades. We are open to managing more in the Cascade area of the Northwest, and have already applied to manage some of the Cascade eastside in Washington as well. Recently, we received an email from someone who really did not like the concessionaire program managing the campgrounds. She had worked for the Forest Service in the 90s and felt that her area of the Forest anyway, had really gone downhill since private concessionaires started managing the campgrounds. However, a couple of weeks ago she went through some of the Hoodoo managed campgrounds and her conclusion was that the program is working, at least in the Hoodoo areas. Unfortunately, not everyone is happy. Some don’t like the time we spend in the campgrounds trying to make them better. They resent the noise and the bother. But personally, I see it as a mission. I love the northwest and after living in the tall trees of the Cascade foothills for the first twenty years of my marriage, I feel at one with the forests. I am truly fortunate to be able to do what I love and to be able to have the chance to do it well. However, if you are one of those who do not like the results of our labor, let me know. We recently had some angry emails from someone who was mad because we were making noise while they were camping. Please be reasonable, improvement does not come about without effort. We can’t do everything behind the scenes, but too we have had some very worrying emails about campgrounds that were not clean and toilets that had not been swept or toilet paper replaced. If that happens, my email line is open. You are the ones who we are trying to serve. Please let me know how we are doing. We are now the largest providers of camping in the Northwest. We manage over 150 campgrounds and about 4,000 campsites. With your help we will also be the best. The other day I was in a meeting with some members of the Forest Service in Washington talking about improvements that we hoped to see in the campgrounds before next season. Hoodoo not only spends several hundred thousand dollars on the maintenance of the campgrounds, but it also takes part in a great program where about 10% of the fees we collect from campers goes back into the campgrounds to fund different types of improvements. If we do this right 100% of the money we collect from you goes either into the management or maintenance of the campgrounds (except for all the tax we pay to the states and counties). During this meeting we were all informed that this season the Forest Service finally had some money to fund some of these improvements as well and that was going to make the Hoodoo dollars stretch further. I left the Everett MBS Forest office with a big smile on my face, thinking of all ways that we could spend that money to make things better. I immediately got on the phone to tentatively buy about $15,000 worth of new picnic tables, and started planning for other purchases as well. However, as more lightning storms started to hit the West, several of my friends in the Forest Service started getting assigned to working on fires rather than working on recreation. Then on the radio I heard that a large chunk of the recreation budget was being transferred to fighting the fires as well. So now we are back to the Hoodoo factor for making things better. So far, the recreation money that comes from private concessionaire’s collections stays in the campgrounds, and it looks like for the foreseeable future that will be our main source of money to get things done. Please know that when you pay your fees for picnicing or camping, your money is being put to good use. And we at Hoodoo are looking forward to working with more of you in the campgrounds. See you around the campfire,
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