My family and me sledding on Lone Peak during the Montana Yurt Dinner
WHEN I MOVED from West Virginia to Montana, the price I paid was distance from my family. But when you’re trading familial proximity for 5,512 acres of big mountain skiing, the price is often well worth it, and as the great family man George Burns once said, “happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” I do love a good family vacation though, and it’s not hard to convince the Jones clan that they need to pay me a visit - when the family decides to head to Big Sky Resort, I am always overjoyed. I think another great family man and former leader of our country, also named George, really said it best: “families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”
I mean let’s face it, that’s what a family ski vacation is: a place where wings take dream. My family came up from West Virginia and Ohio last week to do just that, and they arrived in their Powder Ridge cabin ready to let their wings and dreams comingle on the slopes of Lone Peak for the next week.
My Mom, her friend Marla, my sister, and my brother-in-law all have varying ski levels, but we hit the slopes as a pack. Even with our range of abilities, it wasn’t hard to stick together. We headed to Thunderwolf where my sis and bro and I dropped into Bear Lair while Mom and Marla hit Big Horn before we all met at the bottom and rode the chair together. From the top of Andesite we headed over to Congo where I dropped in as Mom and Marla headed down Safari. We met them at the crossroads, and a few turns later called it a short day and hit apres in the Carabiner and our private Powder Ridge hot tub.
We spent the rest of the week skiing, eating, and generally having a great time (the Fondue Stube was a highlight, though George Bush had it wrong this time - "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family," he once said, but melted cheese and chocolate actually make that quite easy). I could go on and on about the skiing and apres and the food and fun, but the point is that vacations are all about being with people you care about, and it’s pretty easy and fun to do that at Big Sky. That’s why the Jones Clan returns every year. The quality time is the main priority and everything else falls by the wayside. We laugh on the chairlift, sit around by the fire, and catch up on life and the world.
George Burns may be right about needing distance from family sometimes, but I think it was the other George who really had it down: family is important, and we all need a time and a place for some good old fashioned family bonding. My family finds that here in Montana. Big Sky Resort: where family wings take dream.
- Chad
Come let your wings take dream for our last week of skiing and the 8th annual Pond Skim on April 23rd
