Oregon's Hunter Hess heads to his first Olympics
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Bend's own Hunter Hess will be soaring over the Olympic halfpipe in Italy in just a few short weeks. Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Before Olympic qualifiers, X Games podiums and a globe-spanning schedule, Hunter Hess built the foundation of his freestyle skiing career on Mount Bachelor.
Why it matters: This month, Hess will for the first time take the skills he honed in Oregon to the Olympic halfpipe in northern Italy.
Catch up quick: Born and raised in Bend, Hess grew up skiing Bachelor before the proliferation of big terrain parks.
- Instead, Bachelor's natural features — wind lips, rollers and side hits — provided the training ground where he first learned to catch air.
- "The natural terrain at Bachelor is quite unique," he told Axios last week from a training facility in Salt Lake City.
- Having to use the natural contours of the mountain "developed a really interesting and unique style in my skiing," Hess said.
Flashback: He spent much of his youth skiing with teammates in the Mount Bachelor Sports Education Foundation, building jumps off the Leeway and Outback runs where they could try new tricks into soft powder.
- "That was the best way to train back in the day," he said. "Building bigger jumps than you'd normally see in the park."
- After he joined the U.S. Ski Team in 2017, he spent summers skiing the park at Timberline, where the glacier offers one of the only places in the country to ride in the warmer months.
State of play: Hess, 27, is headed to his first Olympics this year after just missing his chance in the 2022 games in Beijing, China.
- A torn MCL sidelined him during qualifying, and appendicitis struck on the day he was cleared to return to snow leading up to the games.
- "It was not my year, to say the least," he said.
The latest: Hess earned bronze medals in the X Games halfpipe in 2024 and 2025 and has racked up podium finishes in World Cup events.
- The last few months have been what he called a "brutal" qualifying process, with events in Austria, China, Canada and Colorado before he headed back to Utah for rehab and training before traveling to Italy for the opening ceremonies.
The bottom line: Hess is doing his best to keep things in perspective as he prepares for his first Olympics.
- "It's another event," he said. "But you're riding for a bit more than just yourself."
What's next: Men's halfpipe skiing gets underway Feb. 19 at 5:45am local time with coverage on USA Network.