by Rick Dumlao
In late September Patt and I took a road trip to Yellowstone National Park. I didn’t realize until after we were there that Big Sky ski resort was a little more than an hour’s drive away. After a few days of touring the park, we decided to check out the ski resort.
It was a scenic summer drive that ended in a long uphill grade to the resort. I first went by the Big Horn condos where we will be staying. There are individual and double condo units and most them are two stories. There’s a Poma Lift on a slope that seemed a bit steep about a 150 ft from our street. Couldn’t see what the inside looked like, but the outside appearance looked nice and the road looked recently paved.
The resort itself is about a quarter-mile further up the main road. There was some summer activity going on like skateboarding, mountain biking, miniature golf and rock climbing. There was also some winter preparation going on in the general village business area. They are also installing a new 8 chair lift from the main resort. I spoke to one of the employees who said they were expecting a good winter this year. He said the phrase going around the resort this year was “steep and deep”. Of course I checked out the local watering holes and determined my first beer off the mountain will be at Montana Joes! To my surprise I also saw there are gambling slot machines there as well. This is also connected to a small mall with the typical gift shops, sport shops, clothing shops, first aid and grocery store.
There was already a dusting of snow at the mountain peak that you can see in the photo above. The employee I spoke to said that it just happened last night and this morning. Within the hour I was there it started to lightly snow again. At that point we decided it was time to leave in case it started to get worse, (in September!!)
