Replying to Hood worth it in the winter?

I just moved to hood river last month for the epic kiteboarding on the columbia, but I'm on a 6 month lease and I'm thinking about what I might want to do for the winter. Some of the locals I've talked to say that meadows is ok but the snow sucks, people from portland suck, etc. Is it really that bad? I'm going to park city for christmas, then I have to decide if I want to try to get a winter/spring lease around pc or if it's worth it to stay in the hood year round.

also, if I do end up skiing hood this winter/spring, what kind of skis should I be looking at? I've heard "just get pow skis" because it snows a lot and is pretty wet