After hiking Lone Peak several times, cutting lines through the 1200 acres of wind-blown expert terrain the tram would access, and nearly getting snuffed by the Moby Dick of avalanches--a slide whose spindrift billowed 200 feet into the sky--I warned the marketing manager that the resort was making a big mistake.
It wasn't a new grievance. The ski patrol was squawking that the slides running off the 11,200-foot peak could be tough to control. The accountants were whining that the proposed $1 million budget was inadequate (the completed cost of the lift was over $3 million). And the lawyers were in a tizzy about possible injuries and whether the corporation would get its assets sued.
"What's your beef?" Mr. Marketing asked me.
"A fifteen passenger tram is waaayyy too small."
Mr. Marketing justified management's position: Bigger trams were astronomically more expensive and, because this tram would transport skiers up the 1,200 vertical-foot face in under five minutes, it would put 180 skiers per hour on the summit. "Not that many people will want to tackle this terrain."
So I reminded him about the long waits for Snowbird's 120 passenger tram, and Jackson Hole's 60 person tram. Both these lifts service, steep, intimidating terrain. Both have loads of crazed triple-diamond skiers who are more disgruntled by long lift lines than 30-foot drops. I told him, when it comes to lifts with macho appeal, if you build it, they will come. "You're going to have a lot more than 180 people an hour wanting to ride this sucker."
The tram's first season of operation (1995/96) verified the prophecy. Skier days at Big Sky leaped 25% in one season--that's huge by industry standards, especially considering skiing's flat growth curve during the 1990s. Now Big Sky, which had previously boasted it had the fewest skiers per acre (a euphemistic way of describing a failing marketing campaign) no longer lived up to its reputation as the Big Empty.
This season proved that 1995/96 was no fluke. Even though snowfall was huge everywhere around the West, a parade of gunslingers wanted to face off against the white incisor of Lone Peak.
I was no exception. Delighted that the two big guns of American vertical were but a few hours apart, I arrived at Big Sky after the boards were still smoking from my duel with Jackson Hole. With the glow of one great mountain fresh in my memory, I figured I could accurately determine how the newbie (who boasts an extra 40 feet of vertical over Jackson) stacked up.
Fresh powder had plastered Lone Peak the night before and around 11:00 a.m. I heard cackles across the patrol's radio saying the tram would open soon. I bee-lined for the base of the tram, but the look of the line horrified me. Though I later learned it was only 20 minutes long at that point, I figured I had a 45-minute-long wait ahead. I bailed and opted to harvest boot-deep powder on the lower mountain.
Big mistake. Those who were patient were soon harvesting knee-deep fluff from the top of the tram to the bottom of the new Shedhorn Lift--some 2500-feet of vertical.
The next day I persisted and--thanks to the tram--skied heavy powder on the mountain's SE and SW flanks. Then, after signing away my life with the Ski Patrol, and testifying that, honest, I did have a Pieps on my front and a shovel on my back, I skied the Big Couloir splitting the north face of Lone Peak.
It's like no other resort skiing...more akin to poaching a big line on a backcountry peak. At 45 degrees it's not the steepest of lines. But the pitch is long and sustained. Looking down the barrel of the rock walls encasing you, you see the full exposure of a 1000 vertical feet below your edges. It wakes you up. It washes you with adrenaline. It makes you want to screw up--not.
And it makes you wanna do it again. Like skiing the Hobacks in good powder, or surviving the leap into Corbet's, you get off that peak with your brain screaming, "Get me back up there."
But there it is--a 30-minute line waiting for a tram that's waaayyy too small.
Big Sky is several hour's drive north of Jackson Hole, so plan to ski both of the giants when you visit this neck of the Rockies. For information about Big Sky call 800-548-4486 or 406-995-5000. For the dope on Jackson Hole, call 307-739-2753.
