Josh Spinney and Kalyn Beasley of Cody, Wyoming, are among the true ski fans of Wyoming’s Beartooth Basin Summer Ski Area, one of only a handful of places in North America where summer skiing can happen as late as July 4.
The unique ski resort, which sits along the Montana-Wyoming border, is North America’s only summer-specific ski resort. Unlike other ski resorts where summer skiing might happen, Beartooth Basin doesn’t open for the winter at all.
It doesn’t open until Beartooth Highway is clear, generally around Memorial Day.
It won’t be open all that long either.
Summer skiing lasts only as long as Mother Nature allows. In a good year, that could be through the Fourth of July holiday. But in a bad year, the resort might not open at all, which is what happened the last two years.
This year, the resort will be open even for the first time in three years, and it remains for sale.
A notice on the Beartooth Basin website says the plan is to continue operating the ski resort until the right group of investors can be found.
Nothing Like Skiing In Summer
You can bet you’ll find Spinney and Beasley — as well as plenty of other true ski fans — on the mountain at least once or twice this summer. There’s just nothing quite like skiing on a clear summer day in June.
“It’s summertime skiing, so you’re not getting powder, you’re getting conditions that are sometimes a little bit more marginal,” Spinney told Cowboy State Daily. “But it’s an awesome place to get some laps in and tuck (jump off) some cliffs.”
Beasley agrees with that assessment.
“Special is the operative word here,” he added. “This really is a special place. I don’t know how many summertime ski resorts there are in the world, but this is one of them, and it’s right in our backyard.”
The novelty of skiing in full summer sun makes the experience feel a bit like spending a day at the beach, Spinney added. It comes complete with a parking lot full of “eclectic” tailgaters from a dozen or so different states.
“But they’re all there doing the same thing,” Spinney added. “The spirit of skiing is truly alive up there.”
Beasley likes the ski lifts and the ski patrol and, while the lifts are a bit rustic, that’s still not common for what is essentially a backcountry experience.
“You get to ski the terrain on days that are warm and sunny, and the culture up there is just really fun,” Beasley added. “People are so excited to have another day of skiing. It’s just a great atmosphere to go skiing.”
Full sun isn’t a given all the time, though, even though it is a nice summer day in June or, if you’re extremely lucky, July. At 10,000 feet of elevation, the weather is quite changeable, and it’s not uncommon to experience all four seasons in a single day at the site.
“It can be a bluebird, sunny day, and then a storm suddenly rolls in, and there’s lightning,” Spinney said. “Then you’re scrambling to get up the mountain to your vehicle. It can get western pretty quick.”
Being prepared for anything is just part of the fun.
Blowing Snow Rings To the Sky
One good sign that things are headed toward opening is a recent video posted on the Beartooth Basin Facebook page.
The video shows a pretty epic-looking process involving little snow-plosions popping off of what’s called the “cornice.” That’s a rocky ridge of rock where snow accumulates, until gravity or some sort of shock makes it fall, starting an avalanche.
Triggering that ahead of skiers is key to safety at the resort. After the snow-plosion in the video, a snowy smoke ring floats up to the bluebird sky, all to the classic rock tune “Spirit in the Sky.”
While that looks awesome, it’s not the purpose of the process. The real meat of the process is triggering loose snow to go ahead and fall down the mountainside.
“They’ll go along the ridge line there to make sure that’s not going to be a danger to those who are skiing below, by blowing off everything that would happen to fracture or fall,” Spinney explained.
Pre-triggering avalanches is a common technique at most ski resorts to lower the risk for people who are skiing. That way they are less likely to trigger any large avalanches.
Beartooth’s ski patrol is also a knowledgeable crew, Spinney added, versed in everything from lift maintenance to mitigating hazards — another part of what makes the experience at Beartooth Basin so great.
According to Beartooth Basin’s Facebook announcement posted in April, the ski area will open May 26 and the plan is to stay open through July 6 — weather permitting.
Co-owner Austin Hart, in a video announcing the opening on Facebook, said the conditions in early April were “low tide,” meaning the snow is adequate, but a little scanty for skiing.
The measurement was 70 cm, which translates to about 28 inches.
“I think this is workable at this point,” Hart says in the video. “Depending on the weather ahead the next couple of months, we’re going to try to get it going and show these lifts some love, get you all up here, because that’s what it’s all about. Stay tuned.”
For Experts Only
Beartooth is not really a beginner ski experience. In fact, it was originally established in the 1960s by a trio of Austrian instructors seeking a summer ski area to train Olympic hopefuls from both the U.S. and Europe. They called their operation the Red Lodge International Ski and Snowboard Camp.
The trio added permanent lifts on the Twin Lakes Headwall in the 1980s, and continued to operate the training run until 2002, when the permit and lifts were purchased by a group of local ski enthusiasts.
Hart, who is a lifelong native of the Beartooth region, is part of that co-owner group. He told Cowboy State Daily he and the group of investors just have a passion for skiing and really want to keep Beartooth Basin alive.
That’s also part of the reason he’s determined to open for the 2025 season, if the weather at all cooperates, even though he feels the snow is less than ideal and much lower than he’d like.
“If we just leave it there and don’t operate it and don’t work on our lifts, it becomes harder for the next season,” he said. “They are like cars. If you stop using them and taking care of them, they won’t operate well. We just want to keep this going and keep it alive. It’s a great resource for the region and for ski enthusiasts. We can’t just let it fall apart.”
That love of the ski resort has made them choosy sellers.
“It takes a certain candidate to want to get into the ski industry in the first place,” he said. “These are passion projects, a labor of love. But it is a phenomenal place. We are just 2 miles into Wyoming … and you cannot beat the setting.”
The current group of investors is willing to work with the right buyer or fellow investor.
“But we want to make sure they know what they’re getting into and have the ability to keep it alive,” he added. “We’re not in a huge rush, but we feel like we could benefit from a few really keen and aggressive investors who just want to keep it alive, or even owner-operators who want to work at 10,000 feet and have some fun skiing.”
Race To Opening Day
The remoteness of the area is part of its superpower, making Beartooth Basin beautiful and special. But it’s also part of the area’s greatest challenge.
“We are on a remote highway that’s not even open yet,” Hart said. “And it won’t be open until a couple of days before Memorial Day to drive to our chair lifts with our trailers and equipment.”
That makes getting ready for the season a race against time.
“We are chipping away at it, waiting on the. Highway guys to get a little further up the pass,” Hart said. “Then we will start unloading some snow cats and go after it with a little more effort.”
Hart said he doesn’t expect the resort to make it all the way to July 6, but getting to the weekend following July 4 is something they strive and hope for every year.
The last time the resort made it to July 4 was 2019.
“It’s an absolute miracle to make it to July,” he said. “It’s all dependent on the weather, though, and if I could predict weather, I wouldn’t be doing this business.”
If the ski run does make it to July 4, there likely won’t be any fireworks, Hart said.
“We could blow up the cornice maybe,” he said.
Beartooth, as a whole, is what Hart described as a minimalist ski experience.
“We don’t do rentals, we don’t offer lessons,” he said. “It’s a pretty simple operation. You just show up with your own gear and ride the lifs.”
There are lift attendants, a ski patrol team, and snowcat operators, but outside of that, there are no amenities. There’s no hotel to stay in “apres” ski, though visitors can buy stickers, hats and T-shirts, if they’d like to help further support the operation.
Other than the lifts, there’s no permanent infrastructure on the mountain. Everything is brought in on trailers once the Beartooth Highway opens, and then it’s brought out again before the highway closes.
A Welcome Harbinger Of Summer
It’s been a tough year in the Beartooth Basin area, which is not too far away from the Red Lodge Ski Resort. High wind at the resort forced closures throughout the season this year, and a 37-year-old man from Billings named Jeffrey Zinne died in a wind-related chair lift accident.
Word that Beartooth will be opening for the summer season is always particularly heartening to all of the businesses in that area, but this year, even more so.
“Having it up gets the skier mentality plugged in before the summer season kicks off and that can drive a lot of tourism for backcountry crowds,” Katye Bennett, who represents Babcock & Miles Market and Wine Bar & Cafe in Red Lodge, told Cowboy State Daily. “So it’s really quite exciting.”
The summer ski resort is an important piece of tourism for the area
Bennett said the snowpack looks really great right now, at 100% of normal, and she’s hoping weather continues to cooperate.
“This one-of-a-kind summer ski destination draws thrill-seekers from all over — and we’re ready for them,” she added. “The energy is palpable and we cannot wait to see everyone piling into town in every type of recreational vehicle possible.”
The Beartooth mountains offer jaw-dropping scenery, which Bennett believes is also part of the whole charm of this unique ski venue. Despite all that charm, though, the fact the ski resort is for sale doesn’t really surprise her.
“If it’s a heavy snow year, it’s great — if you can get there,” she said. “But if you can’t get there, you can’t get there. That makes it absolutely a labor of love.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
