This podcast hit paid subscribers’ inboxes on Jan. 16. It dropped for free subscribers on Jan. 23. To receive future pods as soon as they’re live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below: Who Troy Nedved, General Manager of Big Sky, Montana Recorded on January 11, 2024 About Big Sky Click here for a mountain stats overview Owned by: Boyne Resorts Located in: Big Sky, Montana Year founded: 1973 Pass affiliations: * 7 days, no blackouts on Ikon Pass (reservations required) * 5 days, holiday blackouts on Ikon Base and Ikon Base Plus Pass (reservations required) * 2 days, no blackouts on Mountain Collective (reservations required) Reciprocal partners: Top-tier Big Sky season passes include three days each at Boyne’s other nine ski areas: Brighton, Summit at Snoqualmie, Cypress, Boyne Mountain, The Highlands, Loon Mountain, Sunday River, Pleasant Mountain, and Sugarloaf. Closest neighboring ski areas: Yellowstone Club (ski-to connection); Bear Canyon (private ski area for Mount Ellis Academy – 1:20); Bridger Bowl (1:30) Base elevation: 6,800 feet at Madison Base Summit elevation: 11,166 feet Vertical drop: 4,350 feet Skiable Acres: 5,850 Average annual snowfall: 400-plus inches Trail count: 300 (18% expert, 35% advanced, 25% intermediate, 22% beginner) Terrain parks: 6 Lift count: 38 (1 75-passenger tram, 1 high-speed eight-pack, 3 high-speed six-packs, 4 high-speed quads, 3 fixed-grip quads, 9 triples, 5 doubles, 3 platters, 1 ropetow, 8 carpet lifts – Big Sky also recently announced a second eight-pack, to replace the Six Shooter six-pack, next year; and a new, two-stage gondola, which will replace the Explorer double chair for the 2025-26 ski season – View Lift Blog’s inventory of Big Sky’s lift fleet.) View vintage Big Sky trailmaps on skimap.org. Why I interviewed him Big Sky is the closest thing American skiing has to the ever-stacking ski circuses of British Columbia. While most of our western giants labor through Forest Service approvals for every new snowgun and trail sign, BC transforms Revelstoke and Kicking Horse and Sun Peaks into three of the largest ski resorts on the continent in under two decades. These are policy decisions, differences in government and public philosophies of how to use our shared land. And that’s fine. U.S. America does everything in the most difficult way possible, and there’s no reason to believe that ski resort development would be any different. Except in a few places in the West, it is different. Deer Valley and Park City and Schweitzer sit entirely (or mostly), on private land. New project approvals lie with local entities. Sometimes, locals frustrate ski areas’ ambitions, as is the case in Park City, which cannot, at the moment, even execute simple lift replacements. But the absence of a federal overlord is working just fine at Big Sky, where the mountain has evolved from Really Good to Damn Is This Real in less time than it took Aspen to secure approvals for its 153-acre Hero’s expansion. Boyne has pulled similar stunts at its similarly situated resorts across the country: Boyne Mountain and The Highlands in Michigan and Sunday River in Maine, each of them transforming in Hollywood montage-scene fashion. Progress has lagged more at Brighton and Alpental, both of which sit at least partly on Forest Service land (though change has been rapid at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire, whose land is a public-private hybrid). But the evolution at Big Sky has been particularly comprehensive. And, because of the ski area’s inherent drama and prominence, compelling. It’s America’s look-what-we-can-do-if-we-can-just-do mountain. The on-mountain product is better for skiers and better for skiing, a modern mountain that eases chokepoints and upgrades facilities and spreads everyone around. Winter Park, seated on Forest Service land, owned by the City of Denver,