The “Biggest Skiing in America”A Full Day at Big Sky and Moonlight Basin
Article and Photos by Lonnie Ball
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Dave Stergar turns loose down the Big Couloir. Big Sky, Montana
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Just south of Four Corners on Highway 191 a large billboard reads “Biggest Skiing in America.” My wife Curly and I have decided that today we would go to Big Sky and see just how big the biggest is. The pass costs $79.00 for a day and will allow us access to ski and ride the lift system of two of Montana’s finest resorts, Big Sky and Moonlight Basin.
The numbers alone are impressive, a combined total of 5512 acres, 4350 vertical feet and 29 ski lifts. The single most impressive feature, however, is the mountain itself. We turn off 191 onto the Big Sky Spur road and looming ahead of us is Lone Peak—a stand-alone mountain towering 11,166 feet, flanked by the Spanish Peaks Wilderness to the north and the Lee Metcalf Wilderness to the west. Our excitement level begins to soar.
It’s a bluebird day and the new snow from last night’s flurries is still being plowed from the parking lots. I park today at the Madison Lodge at Moonlight Basin. Although the narrow and twisty access road down Jack Creek deserves caution, I feel as if I’m going back in time, as in an old Warren Miller movie. We start at the Madison Lodge parking lot, the furthest north location and the lowest point (7000 feet) of the “interconnect” of today’s adventure with the Lone Peak Pass. Booted up and skis laid out, the all familiar click is music to my ears as I step in to my bindings and push off from the lodge and ski down to the Six Shooter high-speed lift for the first lift ride of the day.
Although we are early, skiers are already tracking up the snow below us. This is not a concern, because we are headed up higher, in fact to the very top of the peak. The Six Shooter ride is over a mile and tops out at 9000 feet elevation in just over nine minutes. We are still below the Headwater’s Ridge, however, and the Headwater’s chair is a short uphill hike. Curly and I click out and shoulder our skis, but are passed by two younger locals who have chosen to skate up. (They will not beat us to the untracked snow off the peak.)
Once again at the bottom of the Headwater’s chair that same old Warren Miller movie starts to reel in my brain. Slow and old in appearance, it is the newest chair at Moonlight Basin. I count just 21 other chairs on the entire lift on the way up, short, steep, and sweet. Below us and to our right, as the chair chugs us up to the ridge, we pass over some of the most radial ski terrain in the Rockies. Ahead of us, the skiers that passed us up have already started across the Headwater’s Ridges dividing Moonlight and Big Sky. Curly and I smile at each other and with Lone Peak passes ski into Big Sky.
A hundred yards above Big Sky’s Challenger lift and right off the top bull wheel of the Headwater’s lift is a gate and sign designating the boundary and the interconnect of the two resorts. We cross through the gate but stay on a high traverse across Country Club run until we are standing on the edge of the rim looking down a very steep run called the Pinnacles. We venture down through towering rock obelisks, skiing one at a time allowing safe space between ourselves. Our next stop, well below us, but still above 8700 feet, is the bottom of Lone Peak Triple Chair. As we watch from the chair, skiers and riders are busy in the bowl, powder clouds forming in wakes behind them. We unload and resist the temptation to photograph instant face shots and head directly to the Lone Peak Tram.
Built in 1995, the Lone Peak Tram instantly propelled Big Sky into a world-class resort. Skiers and boarders were given lift service access to a peak above 11,100 feet yielding big mountain skiing for the cost of a lift ticket. Numerous runs on the South Face are over 2000 vertical feet and average 38 degrees steep, literally good for hundreds of face shots on a powder day. Moonlight opened the North Summit Snowfield when the two resorts teamed together and offered the Lone Peak Pass a decade later.
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Ursula Howland skiing the Great Falls.
Moonlight Basin, Montana
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Today we wanted to make the most of the interconnect pass for maximum mountain exposure to the steep and deep. We skied from the summit to the west edge of Liberty Bowl along the newly opened Dakota Territory. I pulled up at the bottom of Liberty and watched Curly float toward me through two feet of untracked powder. The snow report that morning had been six to eight inches of new snow. That was correct for the parking lot but not above 9000 feet. Powder grins are real and appear when stoke and ability rule. Curly skied on past me (grinning) down through the upper open gate of Bavarian Forest. I followed her powder plume as she weaved in and out of the trees. We did not stop until we reached the south boundary dividing Big Sky from the Yellowstone Club. Although we had waited 20 minutes in the tram line and left the summit with 13 others who shared the same 15-person car, we were all alone in Bavarian Forest and yet to cross another set of tracks. The Madison Lodge is five miles away.
Some 3700 vertical feet below the summit of Lone Peak, we catch the Shedhorn lift to be transported upward, then ski around via the Duck Walk to the Triple chair again. The Bowl is now pretty tracked up and we head once again for the tram. Our destination this time is north from the summit. The Moonlight Basin patrol requires skiers to possess a Lone Peak Pass, a sign-out, an avalanche transceiver, a shovel, a probe and a group of four to ski the North Summit. Curly and I are carrying all the gear and have signed up for an 11:15 a.m. “tee time.”
Our friends Ursula and Greg from Bozeman make up our foursome and they are similarly equipped with safety equipment. The four of us ride the same tram car to the summit. We clamor out of car and head over to the Moonlight ski patrol shack that is cabled tightly to its perch at 11,150 feet above sea level just north of the top station of the Lone Peak Tram.
It is fortunate that the hut is cabled down, for the wind is howling. We slide through a drift and down a shoveled passage to the doorway that again needs to be shoveled out. The group before us is just leaving and we have a 15-minute wait before we can start down. The patrolman checks our transceivers, packs, and passes and we sign out. There are several aerial photos and drawings showing the routes north off the summit, which we study. Then it is our time slot. We’re out the door and onto our skis. Once again we pass through a gate, this time from Big Sky to Moonlight at 11,150 feet. The wind and snow have created havoc with visibility, but we manage to stay on the narrow strip of snow (and rocks) as we work our way down from the summit to the top of the Big Couloir.
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Dave Stergar hits Q-Ball coming into the Tram line. Big Sky, Montana
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Bracing against the wind, I stand near the entry of the Big Couloir and watch as a Big Sky skier plunges into the narrow couloir on the Big Sky side of the ridge. The four of us turn north and one by one drop off the cornice and down the North Summit Snowfield into Moonlight Basin. The wind abates a bit and the snow is deep on the snowfield. There are large cornice chunks from AV control to be avoided and the north side is shaded from the mountain, but all four us are wearing large grins as we gather at a safe spot three-quarters of the way down the snowfield. We ski west across the snowfield to a route called Great Falls and again ski one at a time, watching each other and giving safe space. The wind is again howling as we traverse west from the snowfield to the Falls.
The top of Great Falls is very steep, maybe 48 degrees. To fall crossing the brink would be bad, but you would not sail off a cliff or hit many rock outcroppings and should survive. Ursula goes across first and watches back as Greg comes across, then Curly and then me. The real fun now begins as we drop below the brink and ski along towering cliffs and through bottomless powder to the first flat area since leaving the summit 3000 vertical feet above us. We watch the group that was 15 minutes behind us negotiate the snowfield far above us. We then ski through a treed glen and pop out on a corduroy groomer called Horseshoe that takes us to the base of Moonlight’s Six Shooter lift. Looking back at the summit 4300 vertical feet above, the Snowfield and Great Falls give me a shiver of delight thinking, I just skied that. The four of us head to the Madison Lodge and have a bowl of buffalo chili for lunch.
We need to dine and dash, there being still more mountain to be skied. Two other friends, Dave and Eric meet up with us, and the six of us ride the Six Shooter and the Headwater’s over the ridge into Big Sky. We ski again through the interconnect gate at the top of the Headwater’s and Challenger lifts and point ‘em down Highway to Lower Morningstar and Mr. K. to Big Sky’s base. Curly, Dave, Eric and I figure we can make another two tram runs and jump on Swift Current lift back to 9000 feet.
We ski the South Face of Lone Peak via the Dictator’s, some of us avoiding the cliffs. Then another down the steep Gullies into the Bowl. Although it is late afternoon, few tracks are crossed and Curly and I are still grinning. Our next lift is Challenger and we ski the Moonlight cliffs, still in Big Sky, but end up on a groomer in Moonlight named Elkhorn that takes us again to the Six Shooter, then down Fast Lane and back to Big Sky’s Challenger lift.
We cross the interconnect gate at the top and ski the steep Alder Gulch run in Moonlight’s Headwater Bowl and cut over high to Fast Lane again. Then we blast down Moonlight’s groomer run Cinnabar and end our adventure at the Madison Lodge. Before the lifts close for the day, Curly and I are soaking in the Moonlight Lodge’s hot pool.
Did we ski all 5500 acre granted us with the Lone Peak Pass? Not even close. Did we weave our way back and forth through two great resorts, getting the best skiing for our abilities and stoke? Absolutely. Did we ski the Biggest Skiing in America? You bet we did.
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