After a trip I try to put together my recap post as quickly as possible after returning home while the details are fresh in my mind. Organizing my photos on the plane ride home had me almost giddy to write this, as this vacation was one of my favorites we’ve taken! I’m not sure if it was the kids’ ages, the rental cabin we splurged on, or just the general flow of the trip, but we had the best time on our family ski trip to Big Sky, Montana. I’ll start off with the quick links for those just wanting the fast facts, then I’ll follow up with the play by play detailing why this was such a trip for the memory books because we all know brevity isn’t my strong suit.
Big Sky, Montana Family Ski Trip Quick Links
***We bought three day lift tickets and as we were picking them up from the kiosk a fellow skier gave us the tip to only buy a single day pass because at the end of that day, we’d get an email asking if we’d like to add a day on for only $99. We had already purchased our three day passes so we couldn’t take his advice, but sure enough, after our first day we received an email for a discounted add on day. It would have saved us several hundred dollars altogether!
Big Sky had been on our radar to want to ski since we visited Lone Mountain Ranch in summer a few years back. Montana is simply breathtaking and it the midst of last year’s chaos of renovating, selling, and moving, David and I booked this trip to have on the calendar to look forward to. Look forward to it we did, and wow, did it deliver!
Being in Greenville now, we have several airport options to choose from, and being that mom generously offered to watch Finley for us, we decided direct from Atlanta was the way to go. We enjoyed a night at mom’s house where she fed us well before we took off for our midflight from Atlanta to Bozeman. In Bozeman we picked up our rental car, loaded up with groceries, and made the hour-ish drive to our rental cabin in the Moonlight Basin area of Big Sky.
The Big Sky mountains are huge and have several distinct areas- Spanish Peaks where The Montage is, the town center/meadow area, the Big Sky Resort itself, and the Moonlight Basin area. If you have any questions about these for a trip yourself, comment below and I’ll help navigate if I can.
Upon arriving at our cabin, we all nearly lost our minds. Not only was it super cute and cozy, it was literally right on the slope of the mountain, just up a gentle blue and green run from the Iron Horse lift. I ran right out onto the slope (it was closed for the day) and spun around as if I was Maria from The Sound of Music. Never have we ever stayed somewhere that was so literally ski in and ski out. The cabin is a 2 bedroom/2 bath standalone with a loft area. Hailey took the double twin room, Kaitlyn took the loft (up a steep ladder/stair), and David and I took the king room.
We popped our grocery store pizza in the oven, unpacked our things, and were settled in time for our scheduled appointment with Black Tie Rentals. It was the easiest and most efficient ski rental ever! We had entered all our info when we booked the appointment, so two guys showed up with the proper sized boots and skis for us all. We simply tried them on to ensure a good fit, let them make some slight adjustments, and boom, equipment rental was done and the skis were waiting for us on the porch for the next day. I highly recommend their services.
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We woke up early thanks to the time change and were pumped for our first day on the slopes. I made fried eggs for breakfast with bagels, sausage, and fruit, then we suited up, walked out the front door, clipped in, and were ready to ski (can you tell I still am mind blown over the convenience?).
The girls started off very shaky. Slow, wide turns and plenty of “oh my gosh it’s steep (hardly) and icy (not at all).” However, once we got a run or two in, they started to gain back their confidence.
For lunch we took the run down right to our cabin, unclipped, and were inside warming up and making sandwiches within 60 seconds. Still, so crazy and convenient; I felt spoiled for certain. After lunch we headed back out for an afternoon of skiing, all feeling more confident in our abilities and ready to explore more of the mountain.
We skied until the mountain shut down, barely making it to our last lift in time to take it up so we could ski down to the cabin. It was exciting because we weren’t sure what we’d have to do to get home if we would have missed it! Back at the cabin, we immediately went into apres ski mode, changing into bathing suits, grabbing our beverage of choice, and hopping into the hot tub. We soaked for a while before cleaning up and heading into town for some Mexican at Alberto’s as the cherry on top of a great first day.
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The next day we woke up to snow! It was tiny snowflakes but considering we hadn’t expected to see any, it was quite exciting. And cold. We ate breakfast, suited up, and headed out into the cloud covered mountains. The extra powder (only a few inches) made for fun skiing, even if it was a bit colder and harder to see. We all had our ski legs back and enjoyed exploring some of the runs that wove through the homes of Moonlight Basin to ski the far right side of the mountain.
By lunchtime we were all ready for a warm up and a hot sandwich. I made chili in the slow cooker for dinner, too. We headed back out in the afternoon, still under snowy skies, and tried our luck with a few more advanced runs. The kids loved anything that had going through trees as an option and asked to try more moguls. It was fun to see their confidence grow!
We all returned back to the cabin when the lifts closed feeling chilled and ready for the hot tub! Chili hit the spot, as we were all tuckered out after our snowy day on the mountain.
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Our next day we planned as a rest day to give our legs a break. Funny enough when it arrived, no one really wanted to take a break day, but it was planned so we went forth with it, enjoying a slow morning of breakfast and the gameshow network. Late morning we got dressed and headed out to enjoy some surprises we had in store for the kids.
Our first stop was Lone Mountain Ranch. We have such happy memories here with the Stathas (my side) family from when we visited in 2021. The kids totally didn’t recognize it when we pulled in, but once we parked and started to explore it all came flooding back. Our first stop was the barn area because Kaitlyn wanted to see if “her” horse, Elko, was still around. He was! But spending the winter on a ranch in warmer temperatures. The fun surprise was the goats; when we were there in summer, they had four baby goats: Dolly, Reba, Loretta, and Shania. Well imagine our delight when we were told to wander into the barn and found three 3-year-old goats living the good life. We all loved getting to hang with these girls we had gotten to know as babies!
We had lunch reservations at the fabulous Horn and Cantle restaurant at the ranch. As we remembered, the food, drinks, and service were all top notch and we savored the experience. David and I lingered after lunch while the girls took back off to the barn to pet horses and goats.
After hanging out at the lodge area for a bit, we loaded up to head to our next destination- The Montage Big Sky! This hotel had been on my radar to check out, and when we heard they had complimentary snow tubing from 4:00-6:00, it sealed the deal for David that we had to visit. We arrived midafternoon and spent some time exploring the beautiful property. We stumbled across their bowling alley and decided to have some family fun. The girls love bowling, especially the kind that puts silly props on your picture when it’s your turn to bowl, and we had a blast. Kaitlyn kept saying this is just the best day ever.
After our hour was up, we headed out to snow tube. Oh my goodness, what a fun time! Randy, the man helping out at the top of the tubing, was so friendly and made the good time even better by offering to five us pushes and spin us and let us all hook together. It wasn’t crowded, maybe 20 people total at the busiest, so we just kept tubing, riding the moving sidewalk up, and going again. It was such a blast for kids of all ages!
As the sun set, we made our way back to the hotel for complimentary Snickers s’mores. I was wanting some real food by this point so we found a place next to the fireplace inside, ordered some food to share, and played Spades for the next hour. We finally made our way back to the cabin, completely happy and utterly exhausted.
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We woke up on our last day of skiing to a bluebird day; crystal clear skies and sunshine! We were determined to squeeze every inch of fun out of the last day and were out of the cabin and down at the lift 10 minutes before it even opened. With the warmer temperatures, no one had to worry about cold fingers or toes; we could just focus on the adventure.
By this time we all were feeling confident in our skiing and up for some challenges. Though the sound of double blues intimidated the kids at first, as soon as they had one under the belts, they were hooked!
We experienced our longest lift line on this day, which makes sense since it was a beautiful Saturday! We largely avoided the center mountain/town center area because it seemed to be where the most people were. We hit one of the major lifts, Swift Current, early afternoon and the line looked long. It ended up only taking 10-15 minutes to get through, but it was by far the longest line we encountered; usually we’d get right on with only a few people ahead of us.
We stopped at the cabin midday to snack our way through lunch on any remaining food and lose a layer, as it had really warmed up by this point. Then we headed back out to ski as much as we could before the mountain closed. We hit up a lot of trees, some double blues, and even the girls’ first black! It was a short, narrow black and both girls said the double blues were much harder then it, but still, first official black run!
We arrived back at the cabin as the mountain closed down, ordered pizza from Blue Moon Bakery (which was SO good), and hopped in the hot tub. The kids eventually got silly in the hot tub so David kicked them out and they ended up grabbing the sleds and sledding down the mountain slope in their bathing suits! What a funny memory. We crashed hard into bed that night exhausted and happy.
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We got up in morning, completed the check out list, and packed our things. We drove back to Bozeman and had some time to kill before our flight. We drove by the Museum of the Rockies and were tempted to go in to see Sue, the T-Rex, but ultimately didn’t have enough time to justify the cost of entry. Instead we decided to grab a hearty lunch to hold us through the flight, and went to Revelry, a place I had heard good things about. Good things, indeed! It was a fantastic lunch; Hailey loved her Caesar salad, Kaitlyn, her waffle, David, his farmers egg brunch, and me, the best blackberry chevre salad with pistachios and friend chicken I’ve ever had. Highly recommend it if you’re in Bozeman.
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And that’s a wrap! We made our flight, landed late in Atlanta (to a screw in David’s tire, but nothing a little air couldn’t fix well enough), stayed the night at mom’s, thanking her for keeping our Finster, and headed back home the next morning.
If you’ve made it this far, I’m impressed! And if you have any questions (is it even possible that I left a single detail out?), please ask away. 🙂
Previous Family Ski Trips
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