“Big Sky is a strange town, in the sense that it’s not really a town.”
May 2, 2024 1:25 PM Subscribe
Slippery Slope: How Private Equity Shapes a Ski Town (Nick Bowlin for Harper's)
It is a weird place.
When I used to take my cross-country trip every summer, I would stay there on my night before going through Yellowstone. Stayed once, maybe twice, at the motel just past the turnoff to Big Sky, once in one of the fancier hotels up near the mountain, and once in a hotel that was having their grand opening the night I was there. FREE DRINKS!
And on the road down from Gallitan Gateway, there was a car behind me the whole way. Could see there was a woman in the Camry behind me. Got there, checked in, and then realized that this woman who had been behind me, was working the event as a bartender/server. A 45 mile drive to do a low-paying job at an event.
And there is no "there" there. There was one little brewbup place that I went to, but other than that, not much else. And this is a phenomenon all across the "tourism Rockies". There is nowhere for the service workers to live, to actually provide the needed services for those tourists. Those millionaires just want their food and drinks and lift operators...
And the corporations don't want to have to pay for employee housing, and the "company town" vibe is very strong. And the millionaires buying up everything don't give a shit, they just want to buy groceries and eat at nice restaurants.
Looks like a cool mountain to ski. Will likely never. But I'm sure there will be other ski towns that are captured by the rich that haven't been yet that I can go to. Didn't know Crested Butte had been captured, (went there a few times as a teenager), and maybe Big Mountain hasn't been captured yet. But Summit County, Steamboat, FFS Vail...? You'd better have a lot of free cash to visit.
Is there anything that rich people can't fuck up? Seems unlikely.
posted by Windopaene at 2:43 PM on May 2 [8 favorites]
When I used to take my cross-country trip every summer, I would stay there on my night before going through Yellowstone. Stayed once, maybe twice, at the motel just past the turnoff to Big Sky, once in one of the fancier hotels up near the mountain, and once in a hotel that was having their grand opening the night I was there. FREE DRINKS!
And on the road down from Gallitan Gateway, there was a car behind me the whole way. Could see there was a woman in the Camry behind me. Got there, checked in, and then realized that this woman who had been behind me, was working the event as a bartender/server. A 45 mile drive to do a low-paying job at an event.
And there is no "there" there. There was one little brewbup place that I went to, but other than that, not much else. And this is a phenomenon all across the "tourism Rockies". There is nowhere for the service workers to live, to actually provide the needed services for those tourists. Those millionaires just want their food and drinks and lift operators...
And the corporations don't want to have to pay for employee housing, and the "company town" vibe is very strong. And the millionaires buying up everything don't give a shit, they just want to buy groceries and eat at nice restaurants.
Looks like a cool mountain to ski. Will likely never. But I'm sure there will be other ski towns that are captured by the rich that haven't been yet that I can go to. Didn't know Crested Butte had been captured, (went there a few times as a teenager), and maybe Big Mountain hasn't been captured yet. But Summit County, Steamboat, FFS Vail...? You'd better have a lot of free cash to visit.
Is there anything that rich people can't fuck up? Seems unlikely.
posted by Windopaene at 2:43 PM on May 2 [8 favorites]
Looks like a cool mountain to ski.
The Big Couloir (videos from the resort, YT skier guy, more popular YT skier guy)
posted by box at 2:51 PM on May 2
The Big Couloir (videos from the resort, YT skier guy, more popular YT skier guy)
posted by box at 2:51 PM on May 2
maybe Big Mountain hasn't been captured yet
Haven't skied there since when it was still called Big Mountain, but judging from Whitefish, it's not too far from it, if it hasn't been already. There are still some great little mountains in Montana though....I grew up going to Showdown almost every Saturday and Sunday in high school. I had a local friend who went to school in Vermont and we happened to be back in the area at the same time over the holidays. After a couple runs on what was not a great day for Showdown (no new snow in a few days, everything groomed), she turned to me and said, "You know, this isn't a great day at Showdown, but it's better than any day I've had anywhere in Vermont." Season pass for students might have even been under $100, but definitely under $200. Teton Pass, which I only went to a couple times, had to cancel their season this year due to lack of snow. It made Showdown feel like a resort...very small-town, local crowd feel there.
The worst ski days I've had in Montana have been at Big Sky. It's the only place where I've skied on actual blue, kind-of-clear, ski-chattering ice. And Big Mountain can get socked in with fog and cold. I think the lowest I've been on a ski lift is about -25, and that's a long ride to the top. Everywhere else is usually pretty great even on a bad day. People on the east coast were always skeptical when I said this, but I grew up skiing 50-75 days a year in Montana and never once skied on fake snow; it was a rare day if I had to wait 5 minutes to get on the chair; and if you knew to get cheap tickets at the local grocery stores, you could ski for less than $20 a day if you didn't have a season pass.
posted by msbrauer at 7:16 PM on May 2 [3 favorites]
Haven't skied there since when it was still called Big Mountain, but judging from Whitefish, it's not too far from it, if it hasn't been already. There are still some great little mountains in Montana though....I grew up going to Showdown almost every Saturday and Sunday in high school. I had a local friend who went to school in Vermont and we happened to be back in the area at the same time over the holidays. After a couple runs on what was not a great day for Showdown (no new snow in a few days, everything groomed), she turned to me and said, "You know, this isn't a great day at Showdown, but it's better than any day I've had anywhere in Vermont." Season pass for students might have even been under $100, but definitely under $200. Teton Pass, which I only went to a couple times, had to cancel their season this year due to lack of snow. It made Showdown feel like a resort...very small-town, local crowd feel there.
The worst ski days I've had in Montana have been at Big Sky. It's the only place where I've skied on actual blue, kind-of-clear, ski-chattering ice. And Big Mountain can get socked in with fog and cold. I think the lowest I've been on a ski lift is about -25, and that's a long ride to the top. Everywhere else is usually pretty great even on a bad day. People on the east coast were always skeptical when I said this, but I grew up skiing 50-75 days a year in Montana and never once skied on fake snow; it was a rare day if I had to wait 5 minutes to get on the chair; and if you knew to get cheap tickets at the local grocery stores, you could ski for less than $20 a day if you didn't have a season pass.
posted by msbrauer at 7:16 PM on May 2 [3 favorites]
It has been 6 or 7 years but my trip to Big Sky was great. The place is enormous and we had extraordinarily sparse crowds on that late weekend in January. I understand that visits are trending up but you could add so many more people to the place without you realizing anyone was there.
I will say that it is one of the more confusing and challenging places to get around. The trail map makes it seem like it laid out in a straight line. The terrain actually curves around the base area and much of it is behind other parts pf the mountain. That meant that on some slopes it would be a pretty blue sky day and then go over a ridge and as msbrauer mentioned you are plunged in a very cold darkness.
posted by mmascolino at 8:06 PM on May 2
I will say that it is one of the more confusing and challenging places to get around. The trail map makes it seem like it laid out in a straight line. The terrain actually curves around the base area and much of it is behind other parts pf the mountain. That meant that on some slopes it would be a pretty blue sky day and then go over a ridge and as msbrauer mentioned you are plunged in a very cold darkness.
posted by mmascolino at 8:06 PM on May 2
This article did not describe a joyful place. It was, in fact, one of the sadder things I've read in a while.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:58 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]
posted by From Bklyn at 2:58 AM on May 3 [2 favorites]
Grew up out there. We lived in the meadow right below Lone Mountain at first; my dad taught at the elementary school by the Gallatin River, he and my mom ran the day care at Big Sky for a bit when we first moved to the area. My brothers and I spent all day skiing. It was great. There were condos even then, but typical skiing clothes were jeans and a sweater, maybe a parka, not thousands of dollars in high-end designer gear.
We eventually moved to Manhattan, west of Bozeman, and lived there until we went back to Michigan when I was entering 6th grade. We’d go back to the Big Sky area to cut timber for the little potbelly stove my dad had installed in our house, or to cut a Christmas tree, on land that was then public but probably has No Trespassing signs on it now, if it hasn’t been clear-cut and developed.
Last time I visited, 2018, we were there for a summer trip to Yellowstone. Place was hardly recognizable. My uncle and cousins were living in the Bozeman area for years, having moved there from California (don’t hate, he lived in Big Sky for years before moving to CA - coming to Bozeman was coming back!). He drilled into me what he had learned from his moves - “it’s only a nice place to live because YOU DON’T LIVE HERE.” People move in, buy up everything, price out the locals, make it just like the place they left, then wonder why it’s lost it’s small town charm?
posted by caution live frogs at 6:10 AM on May 3 [6 favorites]
We eventually moved to Manhattan, west of Bozeman, and lived there until we went back to Michigan when I was entering 6th grade. We’d go back to the Big Sky area to cut timber for the little potbelly stove my dad had installed in our house, or to cut a Christmas tree, on land that was then public but probably has No Trespassing signs on it now, if it hasn’t been clear-cut and developed.
Last time I visited, 2018, we were there for a summer trip to Yellowstone. Place was hardly recognizable. My uncle and cousins were living in the Bozeman area for years, having moved there from California (don’t hate, he lived in Big Sky for years before moving to CA - coming to Bozeman was coming back!). He drilled into me what he had learned from his moves - “it’s only a nice place to live because YOU DON’T LIVE HERE.” People move in, buy up everything, price out the locals, make it just like the place they left, then wonder why it’s lost it’s small town charm?
posted by caution live frogs at 6:10 AM on May 3 [6 favorites]
.
posted by lalochezia at 8:41 AM on May 3
posted by lalochezia at 8:41 AM on May 3
From a Reddit r/Montana thread a few years ago about Big Sky:
"Because it’s a Potemkin Village, a simulacrum of a real place as interpreted by a billion dollars through the front range of Colorado, built by rich people so they can LARP at being close to the Wild Earth(trademark 1995). When you go through Big Sky, there’s an uncanny valley sort of effect going on because it’s all too new, too clean, too modern, and too many of the people are too well dressed for it to be real.
West Yellowstone is sort of the same thing, but it’s had 100 years for the polish to wear off the brass and for some dust to accumulate in the corners. A few generations of people have lived and died there, so there’s a little more of a feel that the servants are actually locals and not human trafficking victims that were purchased off a barge in international waters and shipped in to do manicures for Cruella DeVille."
I grew up in Montana. A couple of years ago I was at the bar in Chico Hot Springs and kindly and politely went up to an, "obviously not from Montana" woman who was wearing her brand new cowboy hat backwards, to let her know that her cowboy hat was on backwards.
She asked, "How do I know it's on backwards?"
Which to a Montanan, was like asking if she should face the front or the back of a horse when you get in the saddle.
(Cowboy hat = tag in the back, narrowing part in the front.)
posted by ITravelMontana at 8:41 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
"Because it’s a Potemkin Village, a simulacrum of a real place as interpreted by a billion dollars through the front range of Colorado, built by rich people so they can LARP at being close to the Wild Earth(trademark 1995). When you go through Big Sky, there’s an uncanny valley sort of effect going on because it’s all too new, too clean, too modern, and too many of the people are too well dressed for it to be real.
West Yellowstone is sort of the same thing, but it’s had 100 years for the polish to wear off the brass and for some dust to accumulate in the corners. A few generations of people have lived and died there, so there’s a little more of a feel that the servants are actually locals and not human trafficking victims that were purchased off a barge in international waters and shipped in to do manicures for Cruella DeVille."
I grew up in Montana. A couple of years ago I was at the bar in Chico Hot Springs and kindly and politely went up to an, "obviously not from Montana" woman who was wearing her brand new cowboy hat backwards, to let her know that her cowboy hat was on backwards.
She asked, "How do I know it's on backwards?"
Which to a Montanan, was like asking if she should face the front or the back of a horse when you get in the saddle.
(Cowboy hat = tag in the back, narrowing part in the front.)
posted by ITravelMontana at 8:41 PM on May 4 [2 favorites]
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The difference between European ski resorts and US ski resorts is really fascinating
posted by misterpatrick at 2:32 PM on May 2