The biggest names in snowboarding, including Shaun White, Louie Veeto, J.J. Thomas, Hannah Teter, Kelly Clark and Gretchen Bleiler, all know Mount Hood. These elite winter athletes honed their abilities at Windell’s Camp, the local snowboarding, skiing, skateboarding and BMX biking Mecca that got them to the X-Games, the Dew Tour and the Olympics.

“They all come through here one point in time,” said Tim Windell, who started

the camp on the Mountain in 1988. “It’s really because Timberline’s the only
game in town in the United States.”

Born Out of Passion
Windell grew up in Boulder, Colo., first hitting the slopes as a skier at the age
of three. At the time, his family would head off on Friday nights for a ski
resort, stay in a trailer and enjoy the weekend. Back then, Windell recalled,
lift tickets ranged from 75 cents to $1.50.“It’s a different time, but obviously
economies of scale, and it was a lot of money,” said Windell, now 46.
During his college years, Windell spent summers fishing halibut, salmon and
black cod in Alaska, and put in limited time in the winter fishing for tanner
crab.

He was also making a name for himself in the relatively new world of
snowboarding, including riding in the back country of Alaska and entering his
first contest in Wolf Creek, Colo. After signing contracts with Sims
Snowboards and TX Team Extreme, competitions took him throughout the
world, but Windell discovered that he needed a better way to train in order to
learn and perfect tricks on a half-pipe (vertical ramps facing each other).
“It certainly changed since the early days,” Windell said of training
techniques. “There was no place to train on half-pipes or jumps.”
His first attempt at starting a camp to do that was in Austria. But the
communication gap was too large, so he set up shop at Whistler Resort in
British Columbia. After two years, Windell found the setting was not ideal and
discovered a location that had it all: a quieter community, a resort on a south-
facing slope, tons of snow and snowboarding and skiing all 12 months.

In 1988, Windell’s arrived on Mount Hood.

“There’s very few ski resorts in the world that I’m aware of where you can
push (snow) and build just about anything you want,” Windell said. “There’s
no better place, in my opinion, during the summer months to build a world-
class facility than Timberline.”

The Camp Experience
Windell’s sits on a 53-acre lot including bunkhouses, five indoor/outdoor
skateparks (such as the “concrete jungle,” weaving throughout trees and
cabins), an indoor playground featuring a foam pit and 75-foot mini-ram and
a BMX dirt track. In the course of a year, approximately 1,600 campers pass
through the camp learning to skate, ski, snowboard and bike, while an
academy teaches and trains approximately 30 high school students aspiring to
become pro athletes.

“From the very get go we’ve had world champions, national champions that
came out of this camp, as we still do today,” said Windell, noting Shaun White
attended from ages 6 to 12 and Louie Veeto was there from ages 6 to 15.
The camp has approximately 100 employees, and Windell estimates 45
percent of them come from the Portland area. Between the campers and
employees, Windell figures the economic impact on the community to be
between $5 million and $7 million, including food, gas and housing.
“Last night at Wing Wednesday at The Shack, we had dozens of employees
hanging out,” he said. “It’s a driving force, for sure.”

In recent years, the camp has added to its offerings, including huge air bags
similar to what stunt people use to learn tricks safely before performing them
on the mountain, and two private lifts for campers to use at Timberline to
access half-pipes and other terrain.

Now, Windell says they are happy with the size and scope of the facilities and
aren’t looking to expand much, but instead they want to stay on the cutting
edge of coaching techniques and improve the academy.

“The idea is not to be the biggest, it’s to be the best and really focus and put
a lot of attention into the product we supply the kids,” said Windell, adding
that another lift could be a possibility for added infrastructure.

On the Mountain
The camp could possibly add mountain biking to its offerings sometime in the
future, but no firm plans are in place. Windell, who also is a mountain biker,
sees a great opportunity for the sport on the mountain, including a proposed
trail system and skills park at Timberline Lodge.

“The more recreational activities we have up here, the better for all the
community – from the businesses to the local work force,” he said. “Those
guys have a lot of money, they’re well educated in most cases and they’re
good, clean people. They’re the first ones to go up and clean the trails, they’re
the first ones to fix the trails if they’re busted.”

Windell added that he’s seen a successful mountain bike area in Durango,
Colo., where he went to school, noting that it coexists with a large elk
population in the area.

The current programs are extremely popular, exemplified by the fact that for
the third straight summer camp offerings have sold out. And Windell tries to
make his business a positive force in the community in other ways, including
opening up the facility for kids in the community to use and offering it to
charities.

For his own sake, Windell still enjoys hitting the slopes or terrain park, as it is.
And he’s got easy access to it all.

“I get out as much as I like,” he said.