By: Emily Stifler Wolfe Sitting on the Six Shooter Chairlift at Big Sky Resort, 15-year-old Adrian squints as he pulls off his helmet. He runs a hand through his dark curly hair and looks up at the peak. “I just needed a different scenery—a different place to be,” he says, describing the challenges he’d faced at home, at school and with the law. Adrian found that in Big Sky Youth Empowerment, a Bozeman-based nonprofit that…
By: Dan Egan and Ben Brosseau At the top of the Challenger Lift, straight ahead is a gate that is the beginning of the Headwaters Bowl Traverse. This is also accessible at the top of the Headwaters Lift. You will immediately see several vertical fences with tracks running off to the left below them. The top of this traverse can often have exposed rocks in the track. Descending along the vertical fences is where the…
By: Dan Egan and Ben Brosseau “Turkey Traverse” is one of the more famous traverses at the resort. This is visible as you ride up the Powder Seeker lift across the top of the bowl. There are two ways to access the traverse: either by exiting to the left off of the lift, placing you on the highest track, or exiting to the right off of the lift and crossing under the lift to access…
By: Dan Egan and Ben Brosseau The traverses of Big Sky are legendary: the Yeti Traverse off of Lone Peak, the Turkey Traverse in the Bowl, or the Alder Gulch and Cold Spring Traverse are just a few that hold the allure of mountain lore. Traveling these traverses, you will be transported from one adventure to another, and tapping into this horizontal network will expand your mountain experience. There are a few traversing basics to…
By Erik Morrison Adventure is the spice of life, or so they say. If that is the case, then Big Sky certainly serves up some of the spiciest terrain in the lower 48. So spicy in fact, that they added an extra diamond to a few zones last year so freeriders would think twice before biting off more than they could chew. There are plenty of steeper and more famous lift-accessed trophy lines in the…