TO YELLOWSTONE PARK
Despite recent snow flurries, summer is in full swing at Big Sky Resort with many new mountain attractions, making the adventuring experiences here even bigger and better.
Popular among families this year is Big Sky Resort’s new Adventure Mountain, a collection of activities including a climbing wall, kids zipline and high ropes course, bungee trampolines, a scenic chairlift ride and Gemstone mining. Located in the plaza as well as at the top of Andesite Mountain, the Adventure Mountain attractions are a good way for the whole family to get involved. The new Challenger Kids Zipline is a new and third zipline course at Big Sky Resort – this one focused on children ages roughly 4 to 11. This in addition to the existing Nature Zip, where customers can take in the breathtaking scenery, and the Adventure Zip for those looking for an adrenaline rush. The Challenger Kids Zipline is 200 feet long and accommodates children 35 to 88 pounds as long as they fit into a kid’s harness.
Beginning this week, customers can enjoy a summer evening cocktail on the deck of Everett’s 8800 or mountain bike longer into the evening on the Swift Current chairlift thanks to extended hours.
“Summer Saturdays” at Big Sky began July 16 and will go for six consecutive Saturdays. The Ramcharger chairlift will stay open until 7 p.m., which means more mountain biking, scenic chairlift rides and happy-hour cocktails on the deck at Everett’s 8800, which will remain open until 6:30 p.m. The last Summer Saturday is Aug. 20th.
For those hearty souls, the hiking trail to the summit of Andesite is now also open. The Andesite Summit Trail follows the cairns to the top. Viewing platforms, selfie stations and peak finders will be available soon.
Thanks in part to large investments in the mountain biking program during the last year, Big Sky Resort was recently named the fourth best mountain biking park in the Northwest by MTBikes.com’s Readers’ Choice Awards, which is one rank up from the year before.
Big Sky Resort added an additional chairlift to expand access to the already-existing 40 miles of mountain biking terrain. The Ramcharger lift received a significant $250,000 upgrade to improve download capacity and now services mountain bikers in addition to Swift Current and Explorer.
Big Sky Resort added 14 new bike carriers to its lifts, an intermediate flow trail off the Explorer chairlift, dedicated bike patrollers throughout the summer, an expanded bike rental fleet and a dedicated bike trail maintenance crew.
Big Sky Resort also continues to push the limits of experienced riders with the improvement of Blue Room and Joker Lips, two expert trails. Big Sky also added an intermediate trail off the top of Ramcharger, which connects to Mountain to Meadow/Upper South Fork trails, allowing riders to make a loop back to the base area or continue to the meadows. This trail, called Snake Charmer, includes bank turns and table tops through Bear’s Lair and Snake Pit.
There are still openings for Big Sky’s Youth Local Mountain Bike Program. The second session begins July 25th. Visit bigskyresort.com for more details.
