Big Sky Resort Blog

My three brothers and I grew up skiing Big Sky together in the days before the Tram allowed access to the very top of Lone Peak.  Our family would drive out from Chicago for the holidays and it was always the highlight of the year.  It’s been a few years since we were all able to get together and ski the slopes of Big Sky, but this Christmas Eve it all fell into place.  I finished the morning Snowreport duties and headed out to meet my brother Pete, John and Pat.  Pete and Pat both live in the area and therefore own proper ski attire.  John on the other hand apparently lived in Northern Minnesota for a bit too long and has forgotten what publicly acceptable ski gear looks like.  He stuck out like a sore thumb wearing a one piece brown Carhartt suit that look like it belonged to a car mechanic from the 70’s, a bowling ball style helmet and old  goggles that were fit for a giant.  Pretending I didn’t know who John was, we all headed up swift current, and despite it being John’s first run of the season we made our way to the Tram.  

It had snowed about a foot the day before and it was now perfectly clear out, needless to say I was excited to get on the peak.  As I waited for the tram my eyes were glued to the A-Z’s , which are filling in remarkably for this time of year, while everyone in line couldn’t stop looking at John and his suit.  I am sure they were wondering if he was going to make it down alive.  At the top we took in the view of the Grand Teton peaking up over a few clouds and then strapped in.   We opted for Liberty Bowl which had great snow the day before.   After weaving through the snow gates we found that the right shoulder of Liberty was still super fresh as we made knee deep turns with occasional face shots all the way to screaming left.  Pete and Pat ripped turns with no problem , but what surprised me was how fluid my brother Johns skiing was for being his first run of the season, not to mention for how little he skies these days.

We noticed that Patrol had opened Bavarian Forest and the glades in that area.  We took some untracked lines through the trees then headed left for aspen meadows.  The snow was untouched and deep.  We stopped to get some video of the open trackless meadows then hopped on the Shedhorn Lift.  My first run on Shedhorn was as good as always.  We rode through Yellow Mule hitting all the jumps and wind lips along the way and finally ending up in Dude Park rolling over all the powdery dips and humps.  After a few more equally good laps on the tram I left my bros and returned to work to finish up for the day.

Christmas day was forecasted to be another beautiful sunny day; instead we were blessed with a Christmas miracle of 3-6 inches throughout the day.  I met up with the one and only Santa Claus to document his visit to Big Sky.  The jolly old man and I headed up Swifty looking for powder.  I was surprised at how talented of a skier Santa was, he ripped down Rice Bowl throwing up powder as he turned straight into massive airs off of the features on Crazy Horse.  At the Base I followed him into the Swifty 2.0 park as he wanted to show off his moves on the box.  Our next lap together was down Mr. K so he could give candy to all the kids and adults alike.  After skiing Santa was still not tired, even after his long night he had energy to test out Big Sky’s new Bungee Trampoline where he executed double back flip after double back flip.  I can’t think of a place I would rather be for the holidays then in Big Sky.   

Check out the end of the homepage’s video to see Santa rip it up.

Have fun out there,

Chris      

Skiing can do so much for so many.

For instance, you really can't thank our military enough, but when you do it in a way that their spouses and children can appreciate it really hits home for our men and women in the service. That was the case from December 18-20 at Big Sky, where over 650 lift tickets were given to active military members and close to 200 were given to their family members, for Military Appreciation Weekend.

"Whatever time they can ever get, as a family, to come together and spend time doing something like this - it's pretty rare," Colonel Kendall Switzer, said of the event at Big Sky, which was in its eighth year. "Having this provides a dart on the wall at the same time every year at Big Sky. We can say, 'let's do that, we can make that work.' It allows us to capitalize on that and let everyone know early on so they can have the leeway to schedule the trip."

And schedule they did, with many of the members also taking advantage of discounted room rates and free breakfast buffet at Huntley Lodge.

From the throng of military folks cheering on the Montana Grizzlies in the FCS Championship game at Whiskey Jack's and other resort bars on Friday night, to youngsters dawning ski gear and getting their first ski lessons, the Montana military members had a big presense all weekend. Camoflauge gear was back in style at least for a few days.

Colonel Switzer, who is the Vice-Chief of the Joint Staff Montana National Guard, noted that Big Sky isn't just any resort.

"It always is special to come here," he said. "I mean, gee whiz, look at Lone Mountain. How can you beat this? This probably shows the best of Montana, so that's a blessing."

Of the three missions for the Montana military set forth by Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the trip to Big Sky directly satisfies two of them. 1) Fully prepare the men and women to fight wars overseas or in Montana; 2) While members are is deployed, take care of their families; and 3) Integrate the men and women back in with their units.

The event has been in place since December of 2002 and has grown each year thanks in part to being held at roughly the same time every ski season. It was the brainchild of group of Big Sky employees, including general manager Taylor Middleton, Meg O'Leary and Dick Fast, who is a retired Air Force officer and a teacher in the Big Sky ski school. Taylor and Mr. Fast were recognized in a ceremony on the outdoor deck above the Mountain Mall.

"Eight years ago we saw American forces deploying overseas, and especially Montana units deploying overseas," Middleton, who accepted a plaque from the Montana National Guard expressing its appreciation to Big Sky Resort, said. "We started thinking about how we could help. A lot of Montanans were asking that same question.

"It makes me feel good, because a lot of us didn't serve in the military, but we want to honor the military. This makes me feel warm and it makes me feel like I'm doing some small part toward that greater mission."

The weekend was special other ways, too.

The conditions were perfect and the diversity of skiers from the aforementioned military crew to others that came to Big Sky to take in the Best Worst Ski Movie Festival, which paid homage to some old, not-so-classic, ski movies. If you sat in one spot for just a few minutes you might find yourself doing a double-take when you saw someone zip by in some sort of military garb and seconds later an 80s-style neon outfit would be doing a double-daffy off a small jump.

Whatever the case Military Apprciation Weekend is growing into one of Big Sky's most popular and unique annual events.

Tom Stuber was a sports writer for the Helena Independent Record for 18 years and is now attempting to dedicate his writing time to the ski world. If you have comments, he can be reached a stuberski@bresnan.net.

It had snowed all week and then the sky opened up for one of our famous blue-bird days which really brings the name Big Sky to life.  I was invited to spin a few laps with a really fun crew from Bozeman along with Meg from the office so while skipping lunch, it was time to ski, Right Now.

We coordinated and congregated in the base area and after some brief introductions, without really much of a plan we naturally skated over to Swift Current.  At the top the call was made to get to the top of the Tram.  Our friends hadn’t skied up there yet this winter so we had the honor of guiding them down their first lap and the word at the Tram was Marx was open.  On top of Lone Peak, standing at 11,150 feet, I could tell with the smile, Jason had found himself back at home, he called it “paradise” and it truly was one of those days when I myself have to take a moment to take it all in.  I pointed out the tip top of the Grand Teton that was jutting through distant, low clouds to the south and Fan mountain to the west was amazing to stare at, but enough site seeing, it's time to ski!

We picked our way through the snow fence on upper Liberty and rolled toward the Yeti Traverse until we were in position at the top of Marx.  The key to that run Right Now is to take it easy on the steepest section above the rock band as you want to negotiate that with care.  But once you’re level with the Gullies Traverse line, it’s nothing but a big, wide, perfect bowl of above tree line skiing that most places would require the Technology of a helicopter to access.

The snow was cut up, but really soft and Meg picked the right line with her speed, balance and grace that drew comments from the Bozeman friends with Jason taking off close behind .  Dan Nichols is no slouch on skis neither, and tore off with a puff of flying snow to work his way to the bottom.  Karyn savored the soft snow, making turns like she’s been spinning laps every day since the Tram opened in early December.

At the bottom near the Duck Walk, gazing up at the giant run above us, we didn't need a signal from the third base coach to know where we’d be going next, the battle cry was thrown that we’d be doing that again and we rounded toward second!

Having worked out any of the unknown factors from the first run, the second one seemed to be that much more fun.  The group graciously let me go first and I stayed in the center for the first few turns then hung a hard right to get the soft snow Meg and Dan had the run before.  Now at the bottom we had to have a brief discussion if we should be getting back to the office, a difficult one considering how amazing the day had been between the good friends, great snow and epic weather.  But Meg said if Dax skis another one, she would, I figured if Meg skis another, then I must, so I think by committee we came to the undeniable, absolute, right decision to lap on around and get one more Marx for our triple.

Now that we’ve mastered all the finer points of this run it was time to really let them run, at the bottom with smiles Meg and I said goodbye to Dan, Jason and Karyn and treated ourselves to a guilty pleasure, smoothly groomed Calamity Jane to get back to the base area.  It was like the next batter hit a home-run while we were on third and we got to trot easily to home base.

I may say this often, but this has been my favorite ski day for the season so far, the snow’s been great since Thanksgiving and I’ve gotten to ski deeper snow, but when you combine the friends, the sun and the run all together, it truly has all the ingredients of what we all yearn for in the mountains. 

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

The snow has continued to stay great with new snow all week long that was beginning to pile up.  I had the opportunity to ski with a really fun crew that included Kevin Connolly, author of the new book, “Double Take: A Memoir”, his friend Ben, and a photographer and crew shooting Kevin skiing for a magazine feature story.  Along with us was Chris who will be writing the story for the magazine.

The light in the morning was a little difficult for photos, so we were able to take full advantage of the excuse to not work and actually just ski around and have some fun.  We began by heading up Swift Current and then working our way to Challenger.  It was mid-week and it felt like we had the entire lift to ourselves, and the conditions were excellent.  The first time at the top of Challenger, I just followed Ben who wasted no time disappearing off the roller on Highway.  I hadn’t skied that run yet this season but with the confidence he was carrying, I figured I could just follow him through the steeps.  The snow was loaded in perfectly, he called it “hero snow where you can’t make a bad turn”, probably 3-5 inches of perfectly smooth cream that begged for big wide, high speed turns. 

From there, we took the left traverse to test out 17th Green.  Staying careful through the entrance and first rollover, the run was perfect with similar conditions as Highway, I love skiing this run and you can let them run just a bit because you have plenty of time where the pitch flattens out at the bottom.

As we looked at one another smiling, this crew of strong skiers I think without having to say word determined that despite the photo project, we had to go do that again.  The second lap Kevin grabbed the lead, blazing trail for all of us to follow, he’s a smooth and fast skier, definitely fun to watch.  I forgot to mention, because skiing with Kevin it’s something you actually forget, but he was born without legs and rides a specially designed mono-ski. 

From there, the sun was starting to poke through and it was now going to be time to get to the top and get some photos.  We took the half full tram car and headed out toward Liberty Bowl, I let the crew get ahead of me as they set up shots, but I caught them for the creamy powder on Screaming Left, the trees were completely untouched.
  
The afternoon the crew really had to get to work on the photo project, so we spun a bunch of laps on Congo, taking advantage the trees, both because of the fun skiing, and because they were great for the photos.

Kevin is an amazing skier and an amazing person, I met him when he was in high-school and skiing Big Sky, and he’s always had the best attitude.  He’s planning to win the X-Games this year and will continue with his book tour, but we’re already planning more ski days along with some videos to share on our site, so stay tuned, and better yet, get out there on the mountain and see if you can keep up with him!

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

Skiing icon Glen Plake recently gave Powder magazine an interview, which is no big surprise. One thing he said, however, really caught my eye. The always-happy-to-talk-skiing celebrity said, “In the past ten years or so, there’s been some ‘stars’ and I’m not sure they were the best stewards of the sport.” I’m not one to weigh in on just what Plake meant by that, but it definitely got me thinking about the ‘stars’ of the slopes in relation to the everyday folks whose contributions are just as, if not more, important, but usually get over looked.

So lately I’ve made it a point to pay a little closer attention to the riders making their way down the runs at Big Sky, and anywhere else I’ve been skiing so far this fall. You watch the multitudes of apparent beginners and the more aggressive experts, while pondering Plake’s words and it doesn’t take long to start thinking that this sport definitely isn’t lacking for stewards of a different ilk than Plake was talking about. They may not be household names, but they’ve definitely got “skiing’s back” so to speak.

The fact that they just want to get to the ski hill, buy a pass, get on the lift, fine tune their skills and generally get after it goes a long way towards keeping the industry solid. Throw in their down to earth art of making light of themselves and each other, and generally having a good time, and you have the makings of something that perpetually fuels skiing. No special favors needed, no deleting those awkward falls, and no mercy.

Riders like these may be inspired by those with their names on the marquee, but with or without that they’ll be on the slopes as long as someone is willing to fire up the lifts.

That’s where a guy named Chris comes to mind. He and four of his 40-something pals were taking a break in the Mountain Mall and yukking it up with typical skier bravado, so I barged in and asked him to tell me their story.

“We’ve gotten together a couple years in a row and we’ll try something next year,” Chris, who was the only member of the group that have ever been to Big Sky, explained. “I drive up to Boise and we head out somewhere. The reason we came here? We were going to go to (Grand) Targhee, but there’s no snow. Our trip had to be something within driving distance of Boise”

As Chris, who’s only other trip to Big Sky came 20 years ago, spoke his friends slid in their own commentary about themselves with some well-crafted one-liners. I walked away feeling they had validated my thoughts on how the ‘non-stars’ of skiing play a major factor in not only keeping the sport afloat, but also being its stewards. If the stars aren’t performing this duty other, less known riders, will take care of it in a relatively more subtle fashion.

That’s just the nature of the sport and skiers. Chris and his pals, and millions others like them, are going to – whether they realize it or not – pamper and coddle the sport just by being themselves. If they hit a big bump in the road, they take a turn for the just-as-good, if not better. They have just as much fun ribbing each other and joking around in the bar at the end of the day as they do bombing down the mountain. When these skiers saw that the hill they were going to wasn’t ready for them, like almost any ski junkie they didn’t think twice about finding one that was ready to roll.

Chris said his group was well-seasoned on the slopes, but that they weren’t going to let that cause them to forgo everything available. Time was on their side as this day was the first of a three-day weekend visit.

“We’ve done most of (the cruise runs), but as the days go on we’ll graduate on to a higher and higher level,” he said. “Those chutes off the tram are unbelievable. (Big Sky) offers that varied terrain, which is nice.”

And skiing offers those varied fanatics, which is even nicer than we realize.

Tom Stuber was a sports writer for the Helena Independent Record for 18 years and now attempts to dedicate his writing to the ski scene. He can be reached at stuberski@bresnan.net.

It was a day of firsts for me, first Tram lap of the season, first Andesite for the season and then I was here at the right place at the right time to be involved with some of the first Marx turns for the season.  We’re enjoying amazing ski conditions right now and the acreage keeps going up and up and up!

Some might know me as a workaholic and occasionally I can be guilty of spending too much time in the office inside and not enough time in the field, outside.  Well today I had the opportunity to combine the two as I was to lead Gerry, a journalist around the mountain.  He was able to warm-up in the morning with local pro Mike Mannelin and we convened over delicious burritos at Whiskey Jacks to give me an opportunity to check things out, all while sharing the Big Sky story with Gerry.

Once we were satiated with food, we rolled up Ramcharger to get some groomer turns on Tippy’s Tumble, all I can say is . . . might have been a little cold earlier in the week, but sure made for ideal snowmaking conditions as this run was flawless with manmade.  But you can ski manmade snow anywhere it gets chilly, the next lap was for the natural, mother nature softness in Congo.  There might have been the occasional obstacle, but the pitch is perfect and the turns were fun. 

After the screamer out of Safari, we loaded onto Swift Current to make our way further up the mountain.  After loading three wide on the Triple Chair, about half way up we spotted a little dot of a skier on Marx, perhaps it was a patroller, but then we saw three or four more!  Could it be?  Marx is opened to public early?!?  Well only one way to find out and we skied over to the walk-on Tram and hopped in with a half full cabin.  At the top the rope was down for Otter Slide, which I was hesitant at first, but we were following Mike and he hasn’t steered me wrong before (at least not this year yet).  Amazingly it was a clean shot on this double black diamond section.  What a feeling to tilt the earth and get the first big, steep, exposed "real deal" turns for the season. 

We positioned to Marx and after picking our way through a small rock band, it was time to let them rip for this epic big mountain run.  The snow was silky smooth through the middle section with perhaps 3-4 inches of softness for bounce.  The bottom was a bit more chopped up, but equally fun.  Once at the bottom, amazed with what we found we knew we had to go for one more lap!

I achieved my last first of the day with a top to bottom Marx lap.  Here all along from the beginning of the season I thought my summer mountain biking might have kept the legs in shape, but I’ll admit my legs were burning toward the bottom, but it was a good burn, something that will go away with more days on the mountain.

Thanks Gerry for swinging by and covering our resort, he did say he has skied all over Canada the past 30 days, including a few big ones I don’t need to mention and exclaimed that Marx was the best run he’s skied all season, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

By the way, we’ll be offering reports directly from the mountain if you follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/bigskyresort or at www.facebook.com/bigskyresort

The conditions keep getting better, and from what we can tell talking to friends, we have the best snow through the Rockies, of course, we sure wish everyone was skiing powder, but sure makes me appreciate where I get to live.

I had the opportunity to spin some laps with a local skier who has worked her way up the ranks to a world class ski racer.  Keely Kelleher is currently on U.S. Ski Team and competing for a spot on the 2010 Olympic Team, naturally it is extremely competitive at these top levels, but with a strong season and good results she’ll be heading to Vancouver in February. 

Her specialty is in the speed events, Downhill and Super G, and with 4 spots for each discipline, she’s focused having already skied through the summer south of the equator and has been dry-land training in Park City getting ready for the season, luckily she had a brief break in her schedule to ski around her home mountain and get some of the best conditions around for Thanksgiving. 

From meeting Keely, you can tell she’s tight with her family, as we were joined by Brenna and Connor, her sister and brother, so after brief introductions we loaded up on Swifty where I was able to hear stories of her competition on the World Cup circuit with the U.S. Ski Team.  We spun a nice screamer first with Calamity Jane and I just tried to keep up.  

On the next ride up, Keely surprised me with how much she loves just free-skiing and getting around Big Sky Resort, the place she learned to ski.  Some athletes I’ve met focus on the gates and inspections and don’t take the time to relax and have fun in the mountains, but Keely confirmed that’s not her, she spends much of her time in Europe and loves to get out every chance she can get.

We went and found soft snow on Rice Bowl which has a great pitch at the top and protects the snow with its north facing slope.  From there it was Crazy Horse out to the base area. The snow was good enough that we decided that we’d stick with the high-speed quad and get a second dose of the snow in Rice Bowl.

Big Sky Resort wants to wish Keely the best of luck as she travels around the globe working toward that Olympic spot, luckily we’ll have her back in Montana for the Christmas break and we’ll offer a ski day with Keely open to Big Sky skiers and will have her submit her own “The Way I Ski It” from her perspective.

We’ll see you out there,

Dax

Hello everyone, so you know, this section is open to guest submissions, we received this one from AK that we wanted to share, if you have your own story to tell, shoot me an email at dschieffer@bigskyresort.com, remember, we like photos too! 

Say Hey, Snow-riders - Big Sky has so much SNOW to be thankful for opening T-day weekend in this '09-10 season! What a blast it was these past four days rekindling old friendships with so many of our favorite runs!  Thursday and Friday were incredible pow-ey and carve-y days as snow-riders  visited the old haunts in the Bowl and off Challenger lift.  Fresh face-shots to Home for tellying out to the Exit chute for the season-opener ... by Friday the Turkey Traverse was fast enough for boarders to go most of the way out there too.  Never Sweat offered a 2-turn mini-Coulair rolling into a dog-leg half-pipe of sorts with absolutely astounding snow coverage. All over the Bowl, the lines were easy, deep and fun!

The skier-compaction effect was needed over on most of the Challenger runs ... and hundreds of us were happy to help out... although it was a bit sketchy getting into 17 Green ... once there, the turns were fabulous.  The Moonlight run got a good workout ... well deserved with the coverage which was mostly perfection ... and delightful for the first weekend.  Kudos to Mother Nature and the crews from Ops to Patrol for a top-notch opener ... I especially enjoyed taking in a Scenic off the Tram and eyeing the Tetons in all their splendor from 175 miles away!

And then it hit!!  Friday night's snow-fall left 4 to 6 inches of fresh powder over all of it!!  On Saturday morning, snow-riders began the serious push into the trees and into their favorite spots. With the opening of the Highway, many of the runs off Challenger remained lightly traveled ... the light winds kept treks to the north re-freshed. Powder ruled the day everywhere you traveled! Good ol' Calamity Jane and Mr. K offered speedy turns.  Upper Morningstar and Gun Mount have incredible coverage and made for some nice "top to bottom" longer runs. Perfect temps and mostly sunny skies made for excellent skiing all weekend long ... by the time a nearly cloudless Sunday rolled around my muscle memory was restored and so were the dreams of another fantastic season!!
With freq-week in force there's lots of snow in the forecast, so . . .

Let's Ride the Sky!

-AK