Big Sky Resort Blog

I hope you’ve been out experiencing the spring weather we’ve been enjoying, longer days, relaxed atmosphere, comfortable temps, this is what skiing is all about.

One of my favorite things about Big Sky is that we get snow really regularly, for a lot of seasons it can be every couple of days so the mountain stays nice and fresh, you couple that with the relative lack of skier traffic and our conditions consistently outperform any other place I’ve ever been.

But there’s another feature that isn’t often talked about between all the acreage, vertical and lifts we boast, and that is the fact that we truly offer skiing onso many different angles to the sun, there’s southern, eastern and northern exposures and when we do occasionally get in a period more than a few days between snow, we still have places for great turns when you know what to look for.

I had the opportunity to ski a couple of days with Peter visiting from Santa Fe and Doug from nearby Bozeman.  It was a pretty relaxing tour and we got to test the theory of the hunt based on local knowledge and time of day.

If it is warm one day and then cools overnight, you should take the next morning to take advantage of the great grooming and high-speed quads.  They are a real treat every day anyhow, then when you want to get off the groomers, aim for slopes that are north facing, places like the south wall in the Bowl, Rice Bowl and even Outer Limits off the Challenger chair. 

Then after you re-fuel for lunch, with the sun shining and the South Face is softening up, it’s best to aim for the sun, get all the massive terrain off the Lone Peak Tram like Liberty, Lenin and Marx.  It’s even a good idea to try several areas from these runs, for instance sometimes the rock ridges will hold shadows longer so check out the other side.  I've said it before here, but I enjoy skiing soft, creamy corn snow almost as much as ripping up fresh snow.

We’ve got plenty of more powder in our future for the next 30 days, but in the meantime I’m sure glad I get to ski at a place that offers such diversity to always offer up nice, clean, confident turns once you track them down on the mountain.

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

Occasionally it’s worthy to take a step back from all the great groomers, well-spaced tree runs or even the easily accessible steeps off of Challenger to boot up just to bag a big, epic run. 

We’ve got a few of them, but none more unique than the North Summit Snow Field that can only be accessed with the partnership of the Biggest Skiing in America interconnect ticket with Moonlight Basin using Big Sky’s Lone Peak Tram.  For lift served, and controlled terrain, this is consequential ,big mountain skiing that requires focus and respect for what the mountain can give you.

I got the invite to ski this run from “smooth turns Taylor” and I grabbed our very own “Vanilla Gorilla Chad Jones” to join in the adventure.  In Chad’s case, he had never been down this run before, so it was a great opportunity to show off a different side of the mountain with the benefit of having a Biggest Skiing in America Pass.

We started in the base are with a ride up Swift Current, this was a lunch break ski session, so it was around noon and at the top we rolled to the Triple Chair.  To our pleasant surprise at the top we noticed only a few people waiting for the next Tram, we wouldn’t even have a full cabin for skiing some of the most remarkable terrain in the U.S. in March, sure feel sorry for any skiers out there waiting in lines to ski.

From the top you do need to check in at the patrol shack to ski this run.  They’ll limit the amount of people they put in there, and after I describe the run, you’ll know why with a few constriction points.  But in reality the check-in is a great opportunity to visit with the experts on what the best routes are to take, as mountain conditions can change from day to day.  Kevin gave us a clear route and gave the thumbs up that the skiing was good.  If you get a chance for this run, I’d personally recommend your first trip through be with a person who has done it before.

You start with the snow field itself, definitely the easiest section of this route as it is wide and wind loaded and nice and smooth.  But your instincts to let them fly are balanced with the fact that you’re skiing above a 100 foot cliff that would not be a good route to find out accidentally.  The views are amazing with a clean look at Fan Mountain and the Madison Valley floor including Ennis Lake.

Proper big mountain etiquette as a group, and you should be in a group, is to tackle each section one at a time.  I started with the snow field, maneuvering to a safe vantage point until Chad slashed his way down on his snowboard, throwing up nice clouds of wind loaded snow with each turn.  Smooth turns Taylor, the gentleman, finished up the section as we got ourselves into position for stage two of this run. 

We opted for Rips, which is a tighter section requiring precise turns.  Here again it is not the skiing that will get you but the exposure, as you’re above maybe an 80 foot cliff.  Taylor went first this time, I got in second and Chad pulled up the last position. 

From here you have some choices to get down the last big rollover and into the powder apron below.  I marked on the map the route we took, but you can see you can travel further lookers left for alternate routes.

At the bottom, once through the crux rollover, its smooth sailing and the consequences fade away as you can now take big, aggressive wide turns out the bottom.  We ended this big run with a low angle groomer to the bottom of 6-shooter where at the top we could spin back around to the Big Sky base area.  This run is a pure, continuous 4,350 feet of vertical drop, the second most in the country.
 
I hope this story doesn’t scare anyone who might think this is all we have, really, we’re lucky in that we have an excellent balance and abundance of the big stuff for the adventurous and nicely cut groomer terrain on Andesite and the lower mountain.

There are many sides to skiing this area and I’m hopeful you get a chance to join us in finding them all, and you had better give yourself a few days, after all it is the biggest skiing in America.

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

When Scot Schmidt calls and asks if you want to go skiing, you kind of have to clear your schedule and sign up for the adventure.  His friends have been wanting to ski the Tram after being in the area for a few days and I was the lucky one to show them around.

He was joined by his friend Corbett and Brian, Brian is the founder of the X-Dance Film Festival that celebrates the best action sports films.   Brian hadn’t been to Big Sky since the 80’s and the base area wasn’t even recognizable.  He said when he skied here last, everyone looked up at Lone Peak, but it was only part of the scenery, not even considered as potential ski terrain back then.

Now that we’re celebrating our 15 year anniversary of the Tram, he was in the area and available to finally ski this epic terrain from this epic lift.  Scot’s an old pro with this big mountain terrain having been here to shoot Warren Miller films in the past.

We loaded up Swifty, then skied to the Triple Chair, this was a straight shot to the lift they all wanted to ski, no warm ups on Andesite cruisers for this crew, no touring the trees, it was all about the Tram.  I noticed from Bone Crusher that we had had some wind since skiing yesterday, wind is a natural element to any mountain environment and with some slopes it can really pull off the snow, but the beauty is that it can load and smooth terrain too.

Not knowing what effect the wind would have, I quietly whispered to a local for some advice, he grinned and said “center punch Marx”.  I glanced to watch his route from the top as he dropped in the Liberty snow fence and so we followed as a group to head toward the Yeti Traverse.

From the top I now knew why he was grinning.  A run that just 24 hours earlier was full of bumps was now perfectly smooth and loaded up with chalky, white carvy snow.  This is a double black diamond run, but it was skiing with the consistency of Mr. K, the turns were effortless and the crew was kind enough to let me drop in first.  About half way down I slowed up a bit to glance how the others were doing and of course Schmidt came flying by me arcing perfect super G turns through the soft snow.  I didn’t have to wait long while Brian and Corbett smoked by for their top to bottom Marx lap. 

At the bottom it was all smiles and the call was made for another one, this time I thought I had better stop and get a few photos to prove how amazing the South Face was skiing.  Look at that famous Schmidt schmear turn.  

For the third lap we eyed Lenin and saw the familiar look of the center loaded up and smooth.  Scot led the way, then Brian showed me how it was done, Corbett went next and I ran tail gunner as we skied another giant, long run that was perfectly wind groomed.

Between laps on the Triple Chair Brian said, almost to himself, that the run just kept getting better, with the way the wind was blowing he was right, every time we'd ski it we had fresh tracks, almost within 30 to 45 seconds from your run, the wind would re-smooth the surface as if you had never been there. 

Big Sky gets snow, it gets sun, we have clouds and the wind can blow, but this mountain is so big that you’re always able to find that perfect spot where conditions line up just right.  Today it was all about the South Face, where will it be tomorrow?  We hope you join us and find out!

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

The powder sure lasts a long time around here, I had the opportunity to ski with a family visiting from our sister resort area in Sunday River, Maine. 

The Burke family had been here before, but it was about 7 years ago, before there was a Moonlight Basin, before the Village Center, before many of the new places to eat around the mountain.  They’ve skied all week and yet I knew we still had places left to explore.  You can’t possibly cover everything in only a week, I’ve been here years and I still find new places to explore, plus we found powder!

I caught up with Greg, Heather, Ian and Aspen for lunch as they were getting a chance to ski the biggest skiing in America for the day.  Before I caught up with them they had achieved the epic ski run off the north side of Lone Peak called the North Summit Snowfields, the only way to get into this run is with a Biggest Skiing in America ticket as you ride Big Sky’s Tram and ski down Moonlight’s terrain. 

Well, since they bagged this big run before I caught up with them, we decided we’d go up and explore the Dakota area, a place that didn’t exist seven years ago.  We got there from the Tram via Liberty Bowl.  It gave me the perfect opportunity to ski the right edge of this massive run.  Since early December the belly of this bowl has been filled in but the edges sometimes only come around after the February and March snows.  As it turned out this line was really good skiing and clean, probably around 3-4 inches of soft snow with a few pockets that would crawl up to boot top.  

After skiing the line, we took a right toward the Kircher cliffs to ski the Dakota Bowl.  Even though all this terrain is in bounds and lift accessible, there was plenty of great snow to be found and the sun was poking out enough to keep our cheeks warm. 

From the bottom we loaded the Dakota Chair and at the top I asked “who wants to follow me and get lost in the woods?”  I was only half joking considering much of the Bavarian Forest is still unfamiliar to me with its massive amount of choices and lines.  Naturally this Maine family was all about the adventure and they followed me down through the ski gate.
 
 We stopped more often than usual to regroup, but what we found in here were a lot of untouched lines with 6-8 inches of powder. 

You actually can’t get lost, you just find moments where you don’t know where you are, but all fall line leads to the Hippy Highway that takes you to Shedhorn.   The beauty is now with the Dakota chair you can spin multiple laps to begin learning more of what’s out there, I picked up a few new things today.

The family visiting was pleased with their week at Big Sky and Greg commented on how genuinely blown away at the size of the terrain here.  Ian, a senior in high school is contemplating his next step and maybe become a Bobcat at Montana State University, his parents assured me he’s a great student, but I had to wonder if they were thinking his education time might be more on the mountain and less in the classroom.  As an MSU alum myself, it’s safe to say most of my lessons learned were outside and clicked into skis, what did you learn today?

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

How about this snow!  We’ve had amazing days on the mountain, in fact I think I’ve been skiing so much that I haven’t had a chance to write it all down. 

I’ll have to tell about a few different days, they were all different, with different friends and visitors, but the one common theme is how great the snow has been.  I’ll have to start with a few days ago when I had the opportunity to show my secrets to  Corey and Karen visiting from New Jersey.  They visited the resort for the first time around 5 years ago and have now been back 20 times, they already have their March vacation booked; these are true fans.  After skiing all this time they thought hitching on to my ski day might show them a few spots they haven’t seen before and they were up for any adventure, which of course is great news for me.

We started nice and easy for an Elk Park Ridge, this was the day before the 20 inch dump, but even this day we found soft, snow on Elk Park Meadows, that angle is perfect for powder turns as we cruised through 4-6 inches of snow that had piled up with the previous two days small storms.
 
Karen and Corey were skiing great so the next stop was to get back to the base and head up Swift Current toward Lone Peak.  Naturally I want to make our journey fun so we got back down through trees on Congo, there were moguls, but the snow was edging well. 

We went to the triple chair and snuck into the Bowl for a run, I’ve really developed a favorite spot off this giant wide face, it’s about half way across the Turkey Traverse above a rock band, hardly anyone skis it, yet you don’t have to huck off the rocks as a gentle shift to the right gets you around the corner perfectly after getting untracked turns.

Corey was pleased so far so I took it up another notch with a Challenger lap.  We found soft snow on Upper Moonlight and then headed to the right for BRT North.  Karen was skiing great and never lost confidence getting into the run even though skiing above a couple of cliffs.  Once in we all picked our line.  I found the best turns on the left edge between the trees on this steep slope.

OK, I had a wonderful day skiing with Corey and Karen, but the next day we got hit with a new storm, gingerly laying another 15-20 inches on top of great terrain.  (By the way, this was a classic Big Sky powder day with 5 inches measured at Swifty at 5 a.m. but with knee deep, face shots on the upper mountain!)

I was skiing with a friend from Billings, Matt who was demoing new skis from the performance center.  He had been shopping and knew he wanted wider under foot, but just didn’t know with all the new technology.  Considering I’m not much of a gear guy I pointed him to the pros and he got to try all different styles through the powdery day.  We really only had the time for one big lap, but we made it worth it for the Tram.  After some face shots on the Lenin rollover, I skied him through the Dictator Chutes and he skied smoothly and confidently while taking in the amazing views, his favorite line ended up being toward the bottom of that run, if you ski Dictator’s, you can jump to the left into a short shot on Lenin proper, but keep an eye out to the right and you can get into the left side of Wave Wall with a short traverse, there are almost always untouched lines in that section. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon skiing the Bowl, we found a foot of fresh in the Exit Chute area, completely untouched powder turns accessible from a lift at 3:30 p.m., there's simply too much mountain to get gobbled up in only one day.

The last time I skied with Matt, it was a powder day at another Montana mountain.  He had commented that considering it was the day of his life at this mountain, he was curious why while I was having a great time, I didn’t seem overly as joyous as the crew.  He told me on the Triple Chair his theory is that I’m spoiled with so many powder days getting to live here, they must be too numerous to count, perhaps he’s right, definitely with the spoiled part. 

I had another epic Tram day with the Burke family that I may have to write about later, I think I’ve officially written too much and the time has come for me to boot up and explore more powder turns.

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

Skiing is fun, just in case you hadn’t heard.  Sometimes it just takes the right motivation to get you out on the hill and there are never any regrets.

My motivation this week was that one of Big Sky’s biggest fans has been emailing me for years regarding different snow related topics from his home in Georgia.   He was planning another trip back to Big Sky and thought it would be fun to be featured in this blog, so I set a time for Robert to meet at the Summit Clocktower and I was joined with his two sons Gabriel and Tripp. 

Like any tour of the mountain I first learned where they had been skiing, luckily they were very adventurous and wanted to use the opportunity to ski somewhere they hadn’t with a local’s guidance.

We got started with a ride up the Triple Chair, where Robert explained to me all the reasons he loves Big Sky, he has brought dozens of folks up before making them all believers, he really likes the snow, plus the altitude isn’t as high as other places he’s been in Colorado, but really, he loves the fact you can simply get so much skiing in during a short vacation, his theory is that for every extra hour he uses to fly to Montana, it pays for itself with 2 hours of extra skiing, he’s seen some resorts with hour long lift lines.

We all worked our way across the Turkey Traverse and my theory was that the north facing South Wall could hold some soft snow.  I invited Gabriel to go first and he handled it well, Tripp went second and made easy work of the run, Robert took off and got himself down using a wide line technique, one that is useful and easily done with Big Sky’s big runs.  He was having a blast and they all decided they wanted to try a different run from the Tram (they had previously mastered Liberty Bowl).

Since they had the confidence, we spun back around and met a Tram station that had no wait, amazing considering the conditions are good, the sun was shining and it was 2 in the afternoon.  I took a picture to prove it, I was blown away.  Folks, if you like skiing the Tram, this week is a good one to be here.

We got to the top and with the sun shining, there was an interesting mix of clouds in the sky, most of them lower than our 11,000 foot perch, it was one of those breathtaking moments that the photo doesn’t do justice for, but I tried anyway.

I had received word before I took off that Lenin was skiing well with the new snow and I figured that would be a great run to progress from Liberty Bowl.  This run had it all with the steeps at the top, smaller bumps through the middle and then soft turns out the bottom.  We may have all taken a while getting down it, but I just suspect Robert wanted to savor the run.

To ski back to the base I figured I’d keep showing them runs they wouldn’t normally have seen or done, so I asked at the top of Jay Walk if they wanted to ski Rice Bowl, it’s great because you can see it from the first gate so they knew what they were getting in to.  I skied Great White and found really nice powder toward the final turns to the road.  Rice Bowl paid off with about 4-6 inches of fluff working through the trees.  I did notice Gabriel chose to really enjoy the powder by immersing his whole body in it with a little bit of a check slide.

We rode Crazy Horse from there and I got to hit the little kickers on the right side and found really nice turny snow in the middle.  At the bottom I had to bid farewell, and the family from Georgia was really thankful for the tour, but in reality, it is me thanking them, they love Big Sky and tell everyone about it, they find a way to make it up here often, and finally and most importantly, they gave me the reason to jump out and make some turns, something we should all be doing more often, after all, skiing is fun, look at those smiles.

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

In reality the similarities between a trip to Big Sky and the movie "Vacation" are few and far between. At least for this family.
 
There's not a big moose out front telling you, "Sorry folks, ski hill's closed."  And you don't have to take a lift operator hostage and force him to fire up the quads.
 
Quite the opposite this week.
 
All the lifts were running and a little bit of snow fell almost every night. Then a whole bunch of snow -- fell on three consecutive days. No one's (not even John Candy) going to get sick jetting around the mountains on that.
 
No need to plunk a few quarters into a vibrating bed and popping open a bottle of champagne. The mood was set by watching illuminated snow flakes flutter down through the lights from the night sky, then blasting over and through them the next day.
 
The booming explosions each morning to set off avalanches are far enough away that they won't cause deafness.  The mother-in-law didn't bring her rabid dog along to mistakenly be left attached to the car bumper when we drove off.  If you take a wrong turn you don't end up in a rough neighborhood.
 
The buses, of course, get you were you need to be on time. Being late, however, isn't a problem since lift lines are non-existant and you can't not get enough runs in.
 
No one even asked me to loan them some money and offered some tacky, white shoes in exchange. Dangle some stylin' white-framed sunglasses on the other hand and I might float someone a few bucks.
 
In the end it's hard to go wrong on a vacation to Big Sky or any ski hill for that matter.  Afterall, if there's not snow, there's apres skiing. If it's too cold, there's apres skiing.  If you're pooped out, there's apres skiing. You can even apres ski before it's apres.
 
Yes, all good things must come to an end and so I leave you with this:
Clark Griswold: I just want you to ask yourself one thing. If you were... if you were me, wouldn't you do the same thing for your children?
Roy Walley (amusement park owner): No.
 
Tom Stuber worked for 18 years at the Helena Independent Record and is on a permanent vacation from that job.

Oh deepness this week, if you hadn’t already heard from all your friends Facebooking and Tweeting of the epic conditions we’ve had.  With snow that just won’t stop, every day just keeps refilling from the day before. 

From time to time I get requests from folks to not just focus on the over the shoulder blower snow I find on Lone Peak from the Tram, they want to know about some of the lower mountain terrain they like to ski.  As it turned out my last tour will get to tell that story, after all, my words pale in comparison to the amazing video we’re now putting on the home page (check out late January BSPN).

Plus, for this story, I get to share how diverse our terrain can be, even on the same run!  You’ll see.

I met with Grace who is visiting from NYC, she has been to most every major Rocky Mountain Resort and absolutely loves the snow and terrain that the mountains in the west get.  I wanted to give her a full exploration of the different terrain we have, I picked up a grooming report and we started up the Ramcharger Chair.  For the first run we hit El Dorado off the back side of Andesite.  This run is absolutely huge, width that is.  I liken it to a guilty pleasure and with the fresh, soft corduroy; Grace exclaimed this is hero snow!  She was right.

From there we spun up Southern Comfort for a lap on Deep South, at this time it might have been about 11 a.m., yet I rarely crossed another ski track with the perfectly manicured grooves holding my edges with confidence.  We tilted the pitch for the next couple of runs for some blue squares, we hit Elk Park Ridge with the bottom of Thunderwolf in sight, I could shoot right and grab the soft, powder snow while Grace could stay up on the ridge and keep skiing the groomed.  We met at the bottom about the same time and we went up for a Big Horn.  Here again the groomers courteously left the left edge natural, so I could ski powder and Grace could ski machine groomed, all while skiing the same run.
 
We hit Ambush to work our way down to lunch, this time I opted to stick on the steep groomed slope myself to get the legs moving on the several headwalls that run offers.  We filled up at Whiskey Jacks, the Gringo Gut Buster can’t be beat when it comes to sustenance through a ski day. 

Big Sky continues to impress me, sure we have some of the biggest, orneriest black diamond terrain you can reach with a lift, but it’s the variety for everyone that makes the place unique. 

Don’t worry powderhounds, I’ll get my face shots in due time, there’s plenty of season left and like I said, the snow keeps coming!

We’ll see you out there,

Dax