February 6–10, 2026
The Montana sunrise hit around 6:45am somewhere between Red Lodge and Absarokee — the kind of sky that explains everything about why people leave good careers and busy cities to come back here. My brother had told me to take a left turn out of Red Lodge. “Don’t follow Google. You’ll miss a beautiful drive.” He was right. I had my coffee, the
Crazy Mountains rising on my right, and five days at one of the biggest ski resorts in North America ahead of me.
I’d been to a lot of mountains on this trip. I knew what a resort access road looked like.
The drive from Bozeman to Big Sky was something else. The Gallatin Canyon road winds up through rock walls and over the river, narrow and dramatic, the kind of approach that makes you think you’re going somewhere hidden —
somewhere that doesn’t give itself up easily. Butch Cassidy had a place like this. A hole in the wall. You had to know it was there.
Big Sky delivered on the promise. I made it to the resort and was on the slopes before 11 on a beautiful blue sky day.
Day one was solo. After three days in Red Lodge with Rick and Kathi — hiking, skiing, hot tubbing, standing in the dark talking about Dandy Lightning the pony — being back on the mountain alone felt like the right reset. Big Sky is enormous. At over 5,800 acres it’s the largest ski resort in the country, and I approached it the way I approach most
every new mountain: methodically, learning the lifts, finding the lay of the land. One note: the Ikon Base pass at Big Sky does not include the tram to the summit — an extra $20 I filed away for later. I’d save the top of the mountain for when my siblings arrived. As it turned out, by the time we rode it the blue sky was long gone, replaced by fresh powder and the snow clouds required to make it. But that’s getting ahead of the story.
My left knee had opinions about day one. I didn’t entirely listen. I jumped on the Swift Current 6 high-speed lift at 10:43 and spent the next three hours working my way around the mountain — blue Jay Walk to greens Mr. K and Mr. Ed, back up Swifty, across to the Explorer Gondola, down Crazy Horse and Marmot Meadows to the Ramcharger 8 lift up to Everett’s 8800 restaurant. Over the next five days that place rocked some well-dressed non-skiing parties riding the Ramcharger up for the evening. I covered 9 lifts, 21 trails, and 15.1 miles at a high point of 9,808 feet — a solid first day on a mountain I was just beginning to understand.
I drove back down the canyon to Bozeman that afternoon and picked my sister up at the airport around 3:30. She’d come to see two of her three brothers — and her youngest son, who was finishing his second season as a snowboard instructor at Big Sky. The third sibling in our family — my middle brother David, three years older than me and only
eleven months younger than Rick — was the one who started all of this. He’d gone on a church ski trip at 14 and came home convinced our parents to take the whole family skiing the following year. We were on a shoestring budget — the kind of family that took wonderful vacations that always included camping out and bologna sandwiches. When we got to Breckenridge, mom had us all spraying Scotch Guard on our ski pants. AKA the jeans we wore most every day. I had never skied a day in my life. My brother David said: follow me, I’ll show you. We got on the mountain and went to what felt like the very top of the world. I learned to ski trying to keep up with him.
Standing on Big Sky all these years later, the three of us talked about that — recalling what we could, or imagined from core memories fifty years old. Maybe we’ll all get together next year.
My sister Trish and I checked into the Holiday Inn Express in Belgrade — just down the road from Bozeman — and upgraded for $10 to a room with a full pull-out sofa. Then we connected with her son, picked him up at his place, and took him and his roommate to dinner at Longhorn.
Her son’s story deserves its own paragraph. A year and a half earlier he had converted an old Chevy van into a travel van — built it out properly — with a plan to head west, find a mountain, and live the snowboard life. This was his second winter at Big Sky. He’d learned the first year that the van, while perfect for summer, was not built for a
Montana winter. It was parked at his parents’ house. He’d pick it up in spring and spend his summers in it — probably in Idaho. Some people dream about that life. He was living it.
His roommate, we learned at dinner, was married — wife a nurse working in the area and pregnant. The mountain life in all its forms, all at one table.
The next morning Trish and I caravanned up the canyon with her son and his roommate — dropped them at the employee entrance, parked in the carpool lot, and walked over to meet him for tickets and rentals. He’d taken care of everything. Free pass for her. Half-price rentals, sized and fitted on the spot. They headed to work. We headed to the
mountain.
She was wearing a big red coat — the best navigational decision of the day. Easy to track her on any run from any distance. She’d actually skied Big Sky the year before with her husband and son, so the mountain wasn’t entirely new to her. Within a few runs she had her legs under her and was skiing well.
We covered a solid portion of the mountain and by noon it had warmed up so much we tracked back to the carpool lot to shed some layers. Her free pass included tram access, but we agreed to save it — when Rick arrived we’d go to the top together.
Ikon logged over 23,000 feet of vertical, 34 trails, 17 lifts, 27.2 miles in just over six hours.
On the drive out of the resort area, traffic stopped. A herd of elk was crossing the road. We sat there and watched them pass — unhurried, magnificent, completely indifferent to the line of cars. Only in Montana.
On the way back down the canyon we connected with Rick, who said he’d probably arrive around 5. We pulled into the Holiday Inn Express parking lot in Belgrade and he was already there, waiting. That evening we went back into Bozeman for dinner — all three siblings, nephew, and his roommate at Sidewinders, a very cool and packed American grill. The food was excellent. We sat around that table for a while, enjoying the Bozeman vibe. Three siblings who don’t get to do this nearly enough.
Day three, February 8 — Super Bowl Sunday — we skied together, all three of us, with about four inches of fresh overnight snow making the mountain softer and quieter. We stayed and skied the whole day. Ikon shows me descending Never Sweat, a black diamond, at 2:36, followed by a few green runs down to the base around 3 before heading back to catch the game.
As a Chiefs fan I had context. Six years earlier — on my dad’s 80th birthday, February 2 — I had taken him to the Super Bowl in person in Miami. Chiefs versus San Francisco. The Chiefs came back to score 21 points in the fourth quarter and win 31 to 20. I still think about his face when that game turned.
Last year my sister and her husband had made a last-minute decision to go to New Orleans for the Super Bowl — their first time attending. The Chiefs lost that one. New Orleans helped soften the blow, she said.
Rick can take sports or leave them — typically leaves them — but he’s good company in a room during a big game. He’s there for the people, which is honestly the right reason. By halftime Trish announced she was heading to the hotel bar across the parking lot to meet her son and watch the rest of the game with him. Of course we tagged along. The
hotel had just opened — we were the only ones in the place. We ordered food and drinks and settled in at the bar. As kids will do, her son eventually called to say he wasn’t going to make it after all. We enjoyed being together anyway. The Seahawks won.
Day four, our nephew joined us. By mid-morning Trish went off with him on a solo tour while Rick and I explored on our own. When we reconnected for an early lunch Trish wanted to take a break — she’d been trying to keep up with her son on fresh powder and more challenging terrain and needed a moment to catch her breath. That gave Thomas a chance to see what his uncles could handle. My theory is Trish asked him not to bring us back until we screamed uncle.
He showed us around the mountain, taking us on runs we wouldn’t have found on our own. It wasn’t long before we were on the Challenger 3 lift, climbing up through clouds and snow toward the black diamonds. He pointed to some guys and said that’s the drop-in we’ll take back under the lift — but maybe not jumping the snow fence. I thought:
there’s nothing worse than skiing these runs with very little visibility. That was until we took the tram to ski Liberty Bowl, Screaming Left, and Erika’s Glade the next day.
Ikon logged nearly 23,000 feet of vertical, 43 trails, 17 lifts, 24.8 miles at a high altitude of 11,174 feet.
Day five — the tram day. Still cloudy and snowing. No view. White sky, white mountain, white everything. Trish took one look at the conditions at the top, took a picture, and made an extremely sensible decision: she rode the tram back down.
The rest of us skied it.
My nephew went first, disappearing into the white. Rick followed, not far behind. I stood at the top of the steepest, least visible terrain of the entire Ski Camino and did what any reasonable 62-year-old pilgrim would do: I clung to the side of the hill and tried to remember how to breathe. I really didn’t want to slide another inch. I was terrified. I went for it anyway — and lost a ski almost immediately.
I had no idea where Rick or Thomas were. I couldn’t see five feet. I lay there on one ski at the top of Liberty Bowl in a whiteout and thought: what have I gotten myself into? A skier coming down behind me stopped, picked up my ski, and brought it to me without being asked. I clicked back in, took a hard left, and found my nephew and brother waiting about twenty feet below.
From that point down it opened up — a long, steep, powdery run to the bottom. It had to be the longest, most difficult run of the entire trip. The knee held. The legs held. By the time I reached the lift at the bottom I was grinning.
The drive back that evening took a couple of hours. It was snowing hard and somewhere ahead of us vehicles had been in an accident. We sat parked on the road. Trish found some music. We got comfortable, spent some quality time with each other and our phones, and waited it out. There are worse places to be stuck.
Rick and Trish headed out early the next morning. I went back up the canyon. Day six — 46 trails, 27.2 miles, my biggest single day at Big Sky. I connected with my nephew around 11am and we skied together for a couple of hours before going our separate ways. I made it back over to the Challenger 3 lift and skied Moonlight and Bad Dog again — this time on a brilliant blue sky day when I could actually see and appreciate what I’d skied blind two days before. A different mountain entirely.
Five days. The largest ski resort in North America, bookended by a solo blue-sky arrival and a Super Bowl in between. 120 miles skied across the week. Big Sky earns its name in every sense — a mountain so large it takes days to begin to understand, and a sky above it that makes everything else feel appropriately small. Five days with my siblings. That doesn’t happen nearly enough either.
I’ll be back. For both.
The next morning I drove back to Bozeman. This time to pick someone up, not drop them off. My wife was flying in. The Ski Camino was about to become a somewhat different kind of journey.
Ski Camino Tips — Chapter 7
Take Rick’s shortcut: If someone who lives in Montana tells you not to follow
Google, listen. The drive from Red Lodge through Absarokee to Bozeman along the
Crazy Mountains is worth every extra minute.
Drive the Gallatin Canyon slowly: The road from Bozeman to Big Sky is part of
the experience. Pull over if you can. It earns its reputation.
Big Sky on the Ikon Base pass: Five days included. At 5,800+ acres it’s the
largest resort in the country. Spend day one solo learning the mountain before
bringing family or friends.
Ikon Base does not include the tram: Budget the extra $20 for the summit
terrain. Even on a cloudy day with zero visibility it’s worth it — just maybe let your
sister take it back down.
Carpool lot advantage: Coming in with three or four people gets you into the carpool lot,
which puts you closer to the base than you’d expect and simplifies the day.
Holiday Inn Express, Belgrade: Just down the road from Bozeman, a fraction of
Big Sky lodging prices, free breakfast. The $10 pull-out sofa upgrade is worth it for a
group.
Go back to the runs you skied blind: If you survive a whiteout run, come back
on a blue sky day and ski it again. Moonlight and Bad Dog are completely different
mountains when you can see them.
When you lose your ski on a black diamond: Stay calm. Someone
will stop. They always do. Clip back in, take a hard left, find your people, ski it out.
The mountain always has a bottom.
Next: Chapter 8 — Banff Sunshine, Valentine’s Day, Lake Louise & the Fairmonts
Camino American Style 