Skyliners Lodge Finds Stewards in NatureConnect Central Oregon

Credit: Courtesy of Deschutes National Forest

Skyliners Lodge, the historic log cabin near Tumalo Falls, will soon reopen under the new stewardship of educational nonprofit NatureConnect Central Oregon.

NatureConnect will oversee Skyliners Lodge operations and resume renting out the lodge for private events, such as weddings, company retreats and parties. Profits from the rentals will go toward school field trips and outdoor learning initiatives, said Katie Chipko, executive director of NatureConnect Central Oregon.

“Skyliner Lodge is such an important place for outdoor learning and field trips,” Chipko said. “We want it to remain a space any group can use. Our hope is to keep our use of the lodge very much the same.”

NatureConnect’s partner network connects more than 30 outdoor programs to teachers and students, from kindergarten to 12th grade. The classes blend natural wonder with science and conservation.

In December 2024, the High Desert Education Service District, the lodge’s current steward for 14 years, came together with NatureConnect and the Forest Service to initiate the transition of responsibility for the Skyliners Lodge.

In March, NatureConnect was awarded a $128,368 grant from the Bend Sustainability Fund via Visit Bend, the marketing nonprofit for the City of Bend, to replace Skyliners Lodge’s aging roof. The new roof will feature special fire-resistant composite tiles. The faux-cedar shingles allows NatureConnect to fire-harden Skyliners Lodge while still abiding the restoration requirements set forth by the National Register of Historic Places, which Skyliners Lodge joined in 1978. The Forest Service has also committed $30,000 to roofing costs, Chipko said.

Roof work will begin in August. Programming and rentals will be paused during this three-week period.

Some of the programs that happen at Skyliners Lodge include Forest Kindergarten, which invites Kindergarten classes from 10 Bend schools for all-day, monthly sessions at Skyliners Lodge.

In November 2024, the HDESD announced that financial strains, along with pending repair work, prompted the lodge’s closure. HDESD is a public K-12 school district that supplements curriculum through contracts with the Bend, Sisters, Redmond and Prineville school districts.

The HDSED will retain its special-use permit with the U.S. Forest Service.

Sara Johnson, the HDESD superintendent, told the Source Weekly on Jan. 1 that, “…The management of the lodge requires substantial resources, including time and funding, that are challenging to sustain. These resources are better redirected to align with HDESD’s primary mission of supporting education and equity.”

Skyliners Lodge is a living piece of Central Oregon history, a landmark that foretold the once diminutive mill town’s future as a winter sport destination.

The lodge, which features a peeled spruce log roof truss system, was the headquarters of the Skyliners Club — a group of Scandinavian immigrants who combined an outdoor hardiness with a love of skiing and ski jumping. Founding Skyliners members count Nels Skjersaa, Emil Nordeen, Nils Wulfsberg and Chris Kostol.

Where the Skyliners Lodge presently lies wasn’t the club’s original headquarters. That initial cabin was located 8 miles west of Sisters near the eastern gate of the McKenzie Pass, near a hill they once used for ski jumping. That cabin was built in 1928, and ski contests were held the next year, drawing Central Oregon’s first winter tourists. By the early 1930s, diminished snowfall and the desire for a larger ski jump prompted the Skyliners Club to build a new lodge bordering Tumalo Creek, near what’s now known as the Skyline Forest, 10 miles west of Bend.

The construction of the second Skyliners Lodge was funded by an employment and infrastructure program created by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Construction on the Skyliners Lodge began that year and was finished by 1937. The Skyliners Club was folded into Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation in 1986.

This legacy isn’t lost on NatureConnect’s Katie Chipko.

“It feels really special at the Skyliners Lodge,” she said. “There’s a lot of deep history and so much education and youth-engagement. You can feel it when you’re up there, tucked away, even though you’re only 10 miles from Bend. It’s a really beautiful thing.”