HELENA — Great Divide Ski Area will open for the season this weekend. The ski area announced Wednesday that the Good Luck Chairlift will be running on Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM, with the Good Luck Trail into Broadway open with limited width.
Lift tickets will cost $25, and more trails will open as the weather becomes colder and as snow-making efforts progress.
Season leases for gear will be open through the weekend.
“We’re excited about winter showing up after a warm October. We’re in the middle of a strong snow-making stretch that we’re looking at through the end of the week and getting close to the actual ski season coming up,” said Travis Crawford, Great Divide Ski Area General Manager.
Through maintenance projects that had been in the works for years along with work planned and completed in this offseason, the mountain is excited to provide an improved customer experience this season.
“This year we're coming out of several years of a lot of construction, between new shop facility, new mid-Mountain Lodge, lots of different construction activities. So, this year we focused on going back to a lot of maintenance. In June, we started with a tremendous amount of brush cutting, hazard tree removal, new growth, removal, and just a lot of trail maintenance, and slope grooming activities. We do a tremendous amount in lift maintenance every single year, we spend over 2000 working hours per season just on lift upkeep,” says Crawford.
While the mountain has done some of its seasonal hiring already, Crawford said the mountain doesn’t reach full workforce levels until season operations are fully underway. “We never know how many numbers we’re going to have until we get them in and we’re operating at full staff, we typically run right around 100 people, with an additional close to 50 volunteer patrollers on top of that.”
There are still several positions available for the fast-approaching season which can be found on the Great Divide website.
“We’re almost always hiring lift operators and ski instructors on our mechanical side, that’s always a little bit interesting, Snowmakers we're always interested in finding someone who would like to work out in a cold environment on the side of a mountain. So, we keep those positions open, find people, and then figure out how we can get them onboarded,” added Crawford.
While no exact opening date is set, the mountain hopes to open for the season within the next few weekends.
Great Divide is the only ski area in Lewis and Clark County. It offers skiers and snowboarders a small, family-atmosphere skiing experience compared to other skiing destinations in Montana that are owned by large mountain management corporations.
Attendees can get free walking waffles while supplies last at the Missing Lynx Saloon.
