Mar 6, 2010

Montana in Winter

The Way It Used to be...

By Lisa T. Bergren

Planning a family trip to Montana in winter? I grew up skiing at Big Mountain in Whitefish, now called Whitefish Mountain Resort. When my family traveled from Colorado to Montana last winter to celebrate Christmas with my folks, I thought I’d take my children skiing, show them where I learned how to ski, relive the memories and make some new ones too.

But the Big Mountain of my youth is now a posh resort that is as expensive as the resorts in Colorado we never go to because there are comparable resorts for half the cost. So when my dad told me to bail on the now-tonier Whitefish and try Blacktail Mountain, we did. And we fell in love.

Skiing Blacktail

Picture this: The ski resort is about nine years old, but it feels like it’s been lost in a time warp, more like what my dad might’ve experienced, had he been skiing and not a poor farm kid at the time. Old guys talking you up, joking around with my kids, telling you you’ve found your new home mountain. I put my five-year-old in group lessons four times, and three out of four times, he was the only student (yes it was 8 degrees, but it was like private lessons for a pittance–$16—and it included his rental! We’re paying 5x that in Colorado this winter…) Kids 7 and under ski free. And for the rest of us, we paid almost half what we would’ve at Whitefish. 75% of the mountain’s runs are blue/intermediate, which is perfect for families and most mere mortals. I felt safe enough to let my girls, 13 and 10, ski together on their own. The guys bumping chairs are happy, not resentful. And the views…from Canadian Rockies, Glacier Park, Whitefish Mountain (cough, cough), the Flathead Range, Flathead Lake right below (the biggest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi), the Mission Mountains…incredible.

There’s also a terrific microbrewery in Lakeside, Tamarack Brewing Company where you can check out a Huckleberry Ale after a long day of skiing—and score some good food.

NOTE: Blacktail is open Wed-Sun, 9:30-4:30. Check for holiday hours/days.

Blacktail is about a 30 minute winding-road-drive from Lakeside, Montana. In Somers, about ten minutes north of Lakeside (toward Kalispell), there’s a Best Western that was advertising Blacktail/hotel deals, and I drove by these adorable cabins in Somers. Or there’s a ton of places to stay in Kalispell, which would make your hotel-lodge run about an hour.

Activities in Kalispell

We weathered enormous snows and record cold temps by doing a lot of sledding (there’s a perfect sledding hill at Dry Bridge Park on 11th Street East and Woodland Avenue), and a stop at the public outdoor skating park in Woodland Park, which was about $5 per kid, including skates.