Triple Black Diamonds at Big Sky

[raisingarizona]

Do you mean the blues or the double-blues?

Telluride does actually rate some runs as double blue and they are definitely pretty steep but the single blues off chairs 4,5,10 and even 12 are mostly pretty chill.

 

[tirolski]

Everett Kircher was the man! John was quite the playboy and had a vision all his own. Here’s a bit of the story of the build with John telling some of it.

Interview article of Boyne’s CEO, Stephen Kircher.

Stephen Kircher's Wildest Ride

A warming climate. Rising costs. Sophisticated competition. Who’d want to be in the ski business today? Meet Stephen Kircher, MBA’88. His company, Boyne Resorts, owns some of the country’s top ski destinations, and he’s betting big on the industry’s future.

www.bc.edu

 

[MarzNC]

What the? Now we have double blues.

https://www.powder.com/trending-news/montan-resort-unveils-double-blue-squares

Spent a week at Big Sky in early March 2024. The labelling that shifted most of the blues to double-blue made good sense. Essentially now single blue means the trail is groomed almost all the time. Any of the easier tree terrain that are marked trails are double-blue. That's where we found great leftovers 2-3 days after a storm system went through. Especially since the tram opened and the advanced/expert folks went there. Single black terrain was much more likely to be skied out than nearby double-blue terrain.

Can get some idea what I'm talking about looking at the Madison side (formerly Moonlight). When we looked at Shaftway, it made far more sense to keep going. Broken Heart was still good. The next day we did Big Tree Cut Off in the afternoon and there was more soft snow there than Broken Heart the day before. That was our last ski day before heading to Bozeman, so we dialed it back after lunch.

With such low snow levels, very few people were in any narrow chutes. Headwaters and Dakota lifts were closed most of the week. My guess is that was partially due to lots of exposed rocks and/or wood since it was sunny with little wind.

 

[tirolski]

Spent a week at Big Sky in early March 2024. The labelling that shifted most of the blues to double-blue made good sense. Essentially now single blue means the trail is groomed almost all the time. Any of the easier tree terrain that are marked trails are double-blue. That's where we found great leftovers 2-3 days after a storm system went through. Especially since the tram opened and the advanced/expert folks went there. Single black terrain was much more likely to be skied out than nearby double-blue terrain.

Can get some idea what I'm talking about looking at the Madison side (formerly Moonlight). When we looked at Shaftway, it made far more sense to keep going. Broken Heart was still good. The next day we did Big Tree Cut Off in the afternoon and there was more soft snow there than Broken Heart the day before. That was our last ski day before heading to Bozeman, so we dialed it back after lunch.

With such low snow levels, very few people were in any narrow chutes. Headwaters and Dakota lifts were closed most of the week. My guess is that was partially due to lots of exposed rocks and/or wood since it was sunny with little wind.

View attachment 24067

Double blue powder FTW.
The local bumps’ little blues are sweet here sometimes too...