Big Sky is between Jackson Hole and Whitefish. So, we had to stop there and check it out. We were really looking forward to skiing in Big Sky. The Big Sky trail map proudly states in big letters, “THE BIGGEST SKIING IN AMERICA.” Park City may have grown to be a little bit bigger when it merged with its neighbor, The Canyons. But, it is still safe to say that Big Sky is, well, big! Big Sky has over 250 runs that span over 5,800 acres of skiing. It has 38 lifts. The vertical drop there reaches over 4,000 feet. We only skied there for three days, so we only scratched the surface of what it has to offer. We saw enough to know that we really liked the skiing there though.
Big Sky is mostly a ski resort, so it does not have much of a town. We stayed in an area called Town Center where there were several shops and restaurants though. Town Center is a great location. We could catch a ski shuttle from there to the mountain during the day and get whatever we needed there at night. There was even a little movie theater in Town Center that had two screens. On New Year’s Day, Jamie and Archer went to see Jumanji and Smith and I went to see the new Star Wars movie. I thought it was awesome, but it could have been horrible and I would have never known because I love Star Wars so much. We were able to catch a shuttle from Town Center up to the mountain to watch fireworks in the snow on New Year’s Eve too.
Whatever town feel Big Sky may lack, Bozeman more than makes up for. Bozeman is an awesome little mountain town about an hour away from Big Sky. Bozeman is in a beautiful valley and is surrounded by the snowy peaks of the Rockies. It has a lot of nice shops and restaurants like you expect from an awesome mountain town. The secret is out about Bozeman – the population has doubled since the early 1990s. We spent a day there, taking in the town, until it started to snow. Driving back up through Gallatin Canyon to Big Sky can be quite interesting when there is snow on the road!
The resort at Big Sky seems really nice and top notch. We were there skiing the week of New Year’s, one of the most crowded times of the year. Big Sky did a phenomenal job managing those crowds. We only had to wait in a few longer lift lines, but they were never noticeably painful. Lunch was crowded, but not ridiculously so. I can only imagine how great it would be on a typical day when there are probably only a quarter of the people there. Maybe I am comparing the crowds to the “back east” resorts we are used to? Maybe the views of the Montana mountains are so beautiful that we didn’t care? Either way, we were really impressed with the ski resort at Big Sky.
The skiing at Big Sky, of course, was awesome. The runs there are long and most of the chairlifts are fast, so that makes for a great combination. Big Sky is home to our favorite chairlift of all time, the Ramcharger. It is a high-speed, eight-seat lift with heated seats and a blue bubble cover that you can pull over everyone to block wind and retain heat. It’s a great place to sit for a while on cold, windy Montana days. It has a huge LCD screen at the base that cycles through weather, mountain conditions, and videos of the steeps on Lone Peak. As Archer said, “This is 50th century technology!”
Since the place is so huge, there is something for everyone at Big Sky. The kids continue to improve and able to ski harder and harder runs. I am pretty sure that they will be better than me by the end of the year. Big Sky is another one of those resorts where something they label “easy” would be “more difficult” at many other resorts. You can get on a blue, “intermediate” run there that is steep, covered in moguls, and in the trees. Even though those runs were incredibly fun, they would not be called “intermediate” where I come from. The kids loved skiing in the trees. That gave us a good reason to show them what a tree well looks like and talk to them about tree well safety.
Big Sky could dish out plenty to challenge us all. We all had our moments at one time or another there. Archer fell a couple times hitting her head and tweaking her neck a bit – luckily, we were not back on West Virginia ice. Smith has started to ski moguls and takes off through them like a bat out of Hell. This led to a pretty big crash where he tweaked his back – luckily, his young body bounces back quickly. I talked Jamie into skiing another blue slope that was crazy steep. She had to slide down sideways, cussing – luckily, she didn’t kill me. I skied a recently opened black diamond slope through the woods that had insanely deep powder with no one else on it – luckily, I only fell (softly) once and could get back up despite how deep that snow was.
Three days of skiing is not nearly enough time to explore and appreciate Big Sky. Lucky for me, I will be back there in about a month for a boys’ trip. Until then, we will continue our journey north to Whitefish, Montana, where we will spend the next ten weeks. It’s a long six-plus hour drive to Whitefish. It turns out that Montana is a big state. Heck, everything seems big in Montana. I think we like it.
Always wanted to go there so THANK YOU! Funny how our experiences are on point with Skiing…this blog although our experience was in CO, rang true. We hit a few tree skiings wells fortunately I hadn’t read the safety or warnings…I guess ignorance is bliss at times? I saw my kids in a week sorely surpass me in snow sports…the younger two on skis, the eldest following dad on a snowboard….Would love to catch up with ya’ll in 2020 on a beach, board, bike, or paddle…thanks for allowing us to follow your amazing adventures!