Montana Snowbowl : Review

Montana Snowbowl

Montana Snowbowl is one of the best kept skiing secrets in Montana. Laying just a short hop from downtown Missoula, Montana Snowbowl is a wonderful ski area that is affordable, receives plentiful snowfall, is laid back and has a wide variety of excellent skiing terrain. In short, it is a great place to go skiing – especially if you like to ski in the trees.

Montana Snowbowl has a solid – and true – vertical of 2600 feet, which is one of the higher lift-served verticals in Montana. The ski area itself is spread out over 950 acres – 500 of which is designated glade skiing! To top it off, Montana Snowbowl gets an average of 300 inches of snow each year. Thus, if you like to ski in powder and in the trees, Montana Snowbowl is an excellent place to go.

Getting to Montana Snowbowl is relatively simple. The ski area lays just a short 8 mile drive from down Missoula. The road up to Montana Snowbowl is, by ski road standards, not bad. The first couple of miles are paved. The remaining 5 miles are along a gravel road. However, for much of this roads length, the road is pretty flat – although a bit twisty. And for a gravel mountain road, it is reasonably wide and pretty well plowed. While common sense needs to be exercised in driving up the road during snowy or slippery conditions, the drive is not a death defying experience by any means.

The base area at Montana Snowbowl is typical of what is found at most other smaller, Montana ski areas. The ski area has a very nice and functional base lodge, with a few smaller buildings housing the ski patrol and ski rental facilities. And, somewhat surprisingly, Montana Snowbowl also has some limited slope-side lodging available, too. The Gelandesprung Lodge is a European style lodge with shared and private baths; hot tub; and kitchen facilities. It is also, considering the cost of slope side accommodations at other ski areas, very affordable.

Montana Snowbowl is essentially one big bowl, built off a peak named Big Sky Mountain, which has a summit elevation of 7560 feet. When looking up to the top of the mountain from the base area, the bowl looks rather intimidating. And for intermediate and beginner skiers, truthfully, it is. Virtually all of the skiing terrain that begins at the summit and heads down to the base area through the giant bowl is rated for expert skiers. In general, the terrain in the bowl is steep, has lots of bumps (or powder after a good snowstorm) and has extensive glades.

The View from the summit at Montana Snowbowl

The ski area itself only has two chairlifts, both double-chairs. The first chairlift, the Grizzly Chair, takes you from the base area up to the ridge beneath the summit. To get to the summit, you then have to ski down a fairly flat cat-trail that leads down the backside of the bowl. From here, you pick up a second chair, called the LaValle Creek double – which will take you to the summit. While on the summit, you get both a great view of the Bitterroot Valley and the Bitterroot Mountains – as well as Missoula itself.

See Montana Snowbowl Trail Map (large image)

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