Big Sky, Big Fun

by Amy Patenaude
Outdoor/Ski Writer

I skied Big Sky back in the late 90s.
My husband Charlie and I were out in West Yellowstone, Montana for early cross-country skiing the week after Thanksgiving. I proved I wasn’t a serious cross-country ski racer by leaving town one day to go downhill skiing by myself at Big Sky. The resort is about halfway between Bozeman and West Yellowstone. I recalled riding in a gondola and having a good time.
My friends Bill and Emily moved into a Mountain Village condo at Big Sky four years ago. Every year they invited us to come ski with them. I decided to go even though my husband Charlie couldn’t make the trip.
As I was making my plane reservations my favorite Warren Miller quote was in my head, “If you don’t’ do it this year, you will be one year older when you do.”
Big Ski is owned by Boyne Resorts. In the East they also own Loon Mountain, Sunday River and Sugarloaf.
Big Sky honors the Ikon and the Mountain Collective passes.
Tuesday afternoon I took a bus from Concord, NH to Logan Airport and flew to Minneapolis and then Bozeman. It was late but I drove my rental car 50 miles up through the canyon and arrived on their doorstep around 11pm.
Emily cooked up a wonderful breakfast of bacon and eggs. Sometime mid-morning she took off to get snow tires while Bill and I headed out to ski. It was a short walk to ride the platter lift to the base of the mountain.
Since my last visit hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in the resort. That gondola is long gone and the only thing that was recognizable to me was the big view of Lone Peak.

The new Ramcharger 8 is the shining star of the 36 lifts that serve Big Sky’s 250 trails on more than 6,000 acres. Yah, wow!
The new eight passenger lift is impressive and the only one of its kind in North America. A loading carpet carries 8 people to the loading line where the chair scoops them up onto heated seats with individual foot rests and each chair has a blue bubble top. There is also a giant jumbo-tron-type-screen above the lift line giving weather statistics and advertisements for local establishments. Even the back of the chairs displayed what looked like to me to be illuminated Big Sky promotions. Yes the ride is fast and super comfortable.

Bill and I met his friends Doug and Where’s Doug. The three led me all over the mountain. The day was lovely and clear and the snow was packed powder. Not fluffy or as deep as I dreamed it would be, but it was plenty good. We skied in the trees, bumps and groomers. We even waited more than half an hour to ride the 15 passenger Lone Peak Tram to its 11,166’ summit. The view from the top was stunning and we were surrounded by thousands of snowcapped pointy peaks as far as the eye could see.
We wound our way off the summit and picked our way between rocks to the top of the snow filled Dictator Chutes and skied down the steep face of Lenin. The snow was chalky and made for some confident turns.
We skied a lot of trees and bumps my first day. Bill had to head back early and the Dougs took me for a few runs on the back and over to Spirit Mountain for some easier skiing. We got off the sweet 8-pack lift and skated over to a blue square bump run, Pomp. After about my third turn I walked out of my ski and landed on my head with my left ski tip stuck in the snow. I don’t know why it happened and I didn’t have an easy time righting myself. I joked I was glad Bill wasn’t there to see me do it! Doug offered that it was a good thing I didn’t do that up on Lone Peak. No kidding. Lucky for me it was my only dump of the three days I skied.
The next day, Wednesday, it was cloudy and colder. I went out earlier and skied a couple hours by myself finding new to me trails and glades every run.

I met Bill and Emily and friends in front of the clock at 12:15. We took off to make our way over to the area that once was Moonlight Basin. Moonlight Basin merged with Big Sky in 2013. We made one run over to the Six-Shooter 6 lift just as it shut-down. There was a mechanical issue and we were directed to wait for a bus ride to the private Moonlight Lodge area to take the Iron Horse lift to get back on the higher slopes. I was impressed how quickly the buses arrived and it was nice that the Big Sky staff served us hot chocolate while we waited.
For supper we went out to The Cabin Bar & Grill in the mall near the base. I had the most wonderful Bison Tenderloin, but I think I ordered Buffalo.
Friday was my third and last day to ski and waiting for us was a sunny day and a couple of inches of new snow. Barb, a college friend that made her home in Bozeman, drove up to join me. On Tuesdays and Fridays Bill and Emily take part in Big Sky’s “Master the Mountain” program for the camaraderie and to improve their big mountain skills.

Barb and I continued to discover more new to us trails. We really had fun on Mad Wolf, the new snow made the bumps extra fun.
We waited nearly an hour to take the Tram to the top of Lone Peak and we skied Dictator! The view and the snow conditions were well worth the wait and explains why the line gets so long. The Six-Shooter lift was back in operation so we headed over and we went to the top of Lone Tree. That whole area is black diamond trees and bump runs.
There are lots of groomed black diamond and blue square trails at Big Sky too. They have a NASTAR race course and terrain parks. I think I saw a zip-line too.
At the end of the day we made a couple more runs with Emily and Bill before I followed Barb back to Bozeman. I spent the night with her and flew out of Bozeman at 7 am and repeated the legs of my trip back home.
I don’t think I could have managed to ski more in three days, it went by too quickly. I made a good dent at skiing Big Sky and it has made me hungry to go back.
Next time Charlie will have to come with me and we’ll ski cross-county at Lone Mountain and visit West Yellowstone too.
Have Fun.