Big Secret

Potential looms large at Montana's out-of-the-way mountain resort

Whitefish, MT – People who live in these parts are quick to let skiers and snowboarders know they’re glad you came to visit The Big Mountain.

Then they say something unusual: They can’t wait until you come back – and not necessarily during the winter sports season.

It seems once isn’t enough for them, and after sampling the hearty frontier spirit of this up-and-coming town and mountain resort, visitors usually are tempted to agree.

Maybe that’s why they call their ski area The Big Mountain Ski and Summer Resort, not to be confused with Montana’s better-known and bigger Big Sky resort southwest of Bozeman.

The Big Mountain

Big Mountain, close to both Idaho and Canada, is a diamond still in the rough among Western slopes. If you missed out on the rowdy early days of such trendy resort towns as Aspen or Telluride in Colorado, Whitefish and The Big Mountain, eight miles away, have some of that same look and feel.

Of course, no trendy snow sports town is worth its salt without a good hill to grab attention, and Big Mountain certainly fills the bill. Situated across Whitefish Lake from the town, it spreads across the broad flanks of the Whitefish Range and spills down the backside. The resort has garnered high marks for its uncrowded lifts and runs, reasonable lift tickets and its snow quality, grooming and scenery.

Big Mountain feels as large as its name, full of steep yet wide intermediate runs on the front side and more-challenging dives through the forest back slope. Top-to-bottom runds such as Inspiration and the Big Ravine provide plenty of room for power cruising and wide GS turns and almost a half-mile of vertical action. North Bowl offers mogul fields. Snowboarders have Fishbowl Terrain Park.

Snow GhostsIt’s all tied together by the Glacier Chaser, a high-speed quad connecting the base area with the summit lodge, perched on a wind-swept pinnacle dotted with eerie hoarfrost-coated trees, called Snow Ghosts, and rock outcroppings. From the top you can see much of the Canadian Rockies in Waterton Lakes National Park across the border.

Don’t be mislead: Big Mountain has some rough edges (a sometimes slow backside lift, awkward traverses back to the base area), but quirks add character and the views are worth the effort.

Still kitschy is the base area’s rustic collection of lodges, shops and bar/restaurants. The village takes a page out of the Old West. Visitors are as likely to see brawny Clydesdales hitched to sleighs as shuttle buses.

The draft horse-drawn sleighs do nightly duty hauling visitors through the woods to a huge canvas and timber tent where grizzled cowpokes welcome visitors to their encampment.

Inside, chilled sleigh riders find a toasty wood-burning stove, hot cider and other refreshments and an entertaining evening fo frontier music, coboy poetry, Old West tales and lasso-twirling lessons. Everyone gets their own lassos as well as colorful bandannas and a list of 50 uses cowboy have for them.

CondosRustic watering holes like the Hellroaring Saloon, Moose’s on the Mountain and the Bierstube are no-frills places that usually have a poker game in back and dancing in front to rowdy local bands. The Palace Bar in Whitefish is famous for its mouse races.

Clustered around the mountain resort is a growing complex of resorts, lodges and condos offering comfortable lodging, all coming together via a coordinated master development plan..

Copyright Gary Olson 2010 First published in The Arizona Republic