Big Sky, MT- what a fantastic, albeit rocky place.

I got the opportunity to ski at Big Sky last March, with my best pal Joe.

My first comment when Lone Peak came into view was “holy shit that’s a big mountain”. Seriously though, this place is huge.

It had snowed 18″ overnight. The upper mountain hadn’t been open the day before, leaving deep powder everywhere above the swift water chair. Did I mention the sun came out? So, the bases were stacked: 18″ of pow, sunshine, and all terrain on the mountain open. Joe and I then proceeded to have one of the most memorable days of the season, threading through trees off Challenger, bowls off Dakota and Shedhorn, and a laps off the tram.

I only had one encounter with the famed Big scree. Skiing through the bottom of Liberty bowl in a tracked area, my gaze (and skis) were drawn toward a little untracked spot… at Stevens Pass, anything is fair game after we have a 50″ base… not so much at Big Sky. Two lovely turns were then rudely interupted by a hollow scrape sound. Quickly stopped and found that I was skiing into a pack of sharks hidden by 5″ of snow. A quick traverse out and I was in the clear, with no harm done. Joe told me of stories of instructor buddies ending their season on rock gardens like I found… not a good way to go out, I think.

One aspect about Big Sky (that may cause my readership to think the PSIA stuff has gone to my head) which is overlooked about Big Sky is the fantastically long and wide intermediate runs there. I know this may sound lame but I love arcing down groomers. Stevens Pass really doesn’t have that going on like Big Sky does. It was pretty neat to ski 1000′ vert of wide groomedness, and not have to dodge gapers, kids, snowboarders, hit sideslips, traverse lines and death cookies.

All said, Big Sky gets a thumbs up from me… hope I can make it out there again this year.