Mission Ridge Ski Area is a ski area in the western United States, located near Wenatchee, Washington. On the leeward east slope of the Cascade Range, its base elevation is at 4570 ft above sea level with the peak at 6820 ft, yielding a vertical drop of 2250 ft. Mission Ridge receives an average snowfall of 200 in per year, with over 300 sunny days, and its slopes face primarily northeast.

Alpine skiing

Mission Ridge has six lifts providing access to 2000 acre of terrain: Mission Ridge has a relatively small terrain park, called the B-24 terrain park. The ski area has had night skiing and snowmaking since 1978, and expanded the snowmaking capacity in 2005.

Base facilities

The Hampton Lodge at the base of the mountain includes a restaurant, bar, shop, and rental center. Additionally, facilities in the base area include lesson centers, a childcare center, and first aid operations.

History

The name "Mission Ridge" was selected in June 1964, and it began operations in the fall of 1966 with two chairlifts in the Squilchuck Basin, where a Walla Walla–based B-24 Liberator bomber crashed on September 30, 1944. Two more lifts were constructed in 1970 and 1972. A wing section of the B-24 plane was removed from the mountain and taken down to the lodge in 1985; it was hauled back up the mountain in October 1992, and mounted on steel poles above "Bomber Bowl." Bill Johnson, the gold medalist in downhill at the 1984 Winter Olympics, trained at the Mission Ridge Ski Academy as a teenager. In 2005, the new Liberator Express replaced Chair 2, and then in 2020, the Wenatchee Express bubble lift replaced Liberator Express.