A guide to skiing in Sun Valley, Jackson Hole and Big Sky

Wyoming, Idaho and Montana offer spectacular scenery, uncrowded slopes and an impressive level of luxury. So saddle up, because as Hilary Doling finds, there’s nothing quite like skiing in the Wild West.

At the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson, Wyoming, they use saddles instead of seats and serve steaks the size of half a buffalo. This is cowboy country with a capital ‘C’. Look at Jackson on a map and it’s a hole carved out of mountains thick with pine trees. The kind of place you imagine outlaws hiding to avoid the sheriff in Wyoming’s wilder days. Australian skiers heading to the US have traditionally sought out Colorado but there is a lot to be said for the lesser known delights of Cowboy Country in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming – especially when in most cases the ski slopes are only a one-flight, short hop from LA.

Sun Valley Shines

Our whole family is in love with Sun Valley. Skiing here is like skiing at your own exclusive ski club because the Sun Valley ski facilities are so luxurious.

Adventurous skiers and boarders head to Bald Mountain. One evening I took a tour on the giant snowcat groomers so I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that these are some of the finest groomed slopes in the world. As well as perfect corduroy, the steep slopes (“our blues are navy, our blacks are blacker”) also have a consistent pitch. As my snowboarding son put it: “no flat bits, Hurrah!” The lifts are impressively high speed, so no waiting in line either, but frankly there wouldn’t be anyway – Idaho has one of the smallest populations of any US state, so there aren’t exactly hoards of locals storming the slopes.

However, luxury-lovers in the know do come here, and have since the days of old Hollywood glamour when Sun Valley was THE place to be seen, long before that upstart Aspen got a look in. Sun Valley even featured the world’s very first chairlift when it opened in 1936. A sense of history is everywhere. One evening we take the chairlift up to the iconic octagonal Roundhouse Restaurant, built in 1939, and enjoy a brisk sleigh ride to the Trail Creek log cabin.

All the mountains and base lodges are beautiful with open fires, comfortable chairs and exposed wooden beams but Seattle Ridge, atop Bald Mountain, also has mesmerising views across the wild Pioneer and Sawtooth Mountains.

Learners even have their own area over on Dollar Mountain, the other side of town, where gentler slopes encourage confidence. Lack of crowds means that ski classes are small and your child may well end up having a private lesson by default. Either way our son votes Sun Valley instructors the best of any he had during the trip.

Getting around is so easy that my 13-year-old enjoyed boarding the shuttle bus by himself to get from Dollar to Bald Mountain, and was disappointed when we met him at the bus stop because it meant he couldn’t sneak off and spend the last of his holiday dollars on “the world’s best hot chocolate” at the À la Mode ice- cream and cocoa bar in the Sun Valley Resort village.

The best family-friendly luxury resort in Sun Valley is the swanky and elegant Sun Valley Lodge, where Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls and Gretchen’s restaurant serves the heartiest ski breakfast imaginable. The adjoining condominiums have plenty of space for five-star families complete with plush kitchens. And just in case you wondered, the resort is indeed known for its sunny days – the sun shone every day of our January visit, except one, when it snowed. Perfect.

Jackson Hole Thrills

Of the three ski resorts we visit, Jackson Hole is the name that has the most recognition back home. Just south of Yellowstone National Park on the edge of the mighty Teton Range, Jackson Hole definitely has the steeps; it is one of the birthplaces of extreme skiing in the US. On our first day we ride the ten-person tram to the top of Rendezvous Mountain just to see the view and watch the experts plummeting through the bowls and shutes and down the legendary – and terrifying – Corbet’s Couloir. Wisely my son opts to take the tram back down rather than ski.

Luckily we find plenty of runs we do want to experience and the family loved the variety of terrain parks, the tracks through the trees, as well as the wide open higher slopes.

Downtown Jackson, with its wooden sidewalks and frontier feel, is 19 kilometres (12 miles) down the mountain and a fun place to visit, but we stayed at the luxurious Teton Mountain Lodge & Spa right in the mountain village.

As we check in, a little boy wanders into the lobby in a whole Sheriff Woody from ‘Toy Story’ cowboy outfit but most kids are swathed in warmer gear, clunking around in their mini ski boots and helmets. The views from the lodge’s rooftop hot tub are stunning and the Spur Restaurant & Bar is a favourite hangout for locals who know good food when they taste it. Not to be missed is a visit to the Elk Sanctuary just outside the town of Jackson – a magical experience for children, where horse-drawn sleighs will take them right into the middle of herds of wild, antlered elk.

Big Sky, Big Mountain

As we drive up the winding pass, Lone Mountain at Big Sky, Montana, looks exactly like a child’s drawing: a perfect triangular peak with an ice-cream dollop of snow on the top. Big Sky is aptly named. Not only because of its wide blue skies but because it is, well, big, with 150 trails and over 1200 skiable hectares. Twin it with the connecting slopes of Moonlight Basin next door and it rivals the mighty Vail for size. We stay slope-side at the 10-storey condominium hotel, The Summit, where you can see the ski trails right outside your window.

Big Sky’s blues are mellow, its trails meandering and enjoyable for families to ski, while off the lone peak tram (built with the aid of 3000 helicopter flights and hundreds of specialist high-altitude workers) there is enough tricky terrain for the most advanced skier.

Skiing and boarding aside, Base Camp in the Mountain Village is kids’ central when it comes to other activities. There is a zipline, high ropes course, laser tag, bungee trampoline, climbing wall, giant swing and tube park; which should keep everyone happy.

Bordering Big Sky is the Yellowstone Club, a private ski hill serving the needs of its fabulously wealthy residents including Bill Gates, Justin Timberlake and Ted Turner who has a ranch in the state. On our last day we ski along the fence line and dream of holidaying in a zillion-dollar private lodge.

We chose to drive between the three resorts we skied, which was one of the most memorable parts of our trip. With the car radio serenading us with Country and Western songs, we drove through the flat snow-blanketed plains of Idaho, across the pass into the hole of Jackson and skirted Yellowstone National Park on our way to the vast mountain-ringed wonderland of Montana. The scenery, as much as the skiing, was a highlight of the holiday. What’s more, the kids didn’t say “are we there yet?” once. A minor Montana miracle in itself.

This article originally appeared in Five Star Kids magazine. To subscribe to the latest issue, click here.

Lead image: Jackson Hole © Dan Avila