4,000 Vertical Feet Straight Out Your Car Door!

By Rusty Squire | March 24, 2009

If you like spring/summer skiing then one of the best places on the planet for easy car access skiing is the Beartooth Pass in Red Lodge, Montana. Call MDOT at 800-226-7623 to make sure it’s open as snow even falls in June up here. This is some of the best car accessible ski terrain anywhere on the planet.

On Memorial Day weekend, at the end of May, the Beartooth Pass just 10 miles south of Red Lodge, Montana opens for car traffic. At the bottom of the Pass is the Glacier Lake Valley and road sit at about 7,000 feet of elevation. From that altitude the Pass climbs to almost 11,000 feet at the West Summit just over the Montana border in Wyoming. Some of the runs drop over 3,500 to even 4,000 vertical feet. There are lots of incredible couloir’s (see photos) and enough high mountain fun for a wide range of ability levels.

The night before we crashed at a friend’s in this really cool, new real estate development called The Spires at Red Lodge and watched the sun set against the 12,000 foot peaks to the west. We couldn’t believe that in a ski town where they bordered an 18 hole golf course that they were selling complete cottages for under $200,000 – in this day and age who has heard of anything that affordable in a Rocky Mountain ski town.

We all stayed at this really cool new development called The Spires at Red Lodge the night before and went for a big walk on their trail system marveling at the views of the high peaks to the west. We were amazed by just how affordable Red Lodge Montana real estate is as they were selling complete cottages for under $200,000. We didn’t think there was a ski town anywhere where anything left that was this affordable.

Our pick-up taken care of we headed off in to the heavens and the jaw dropping scenery that is the Pass. Just the car ride alone makes this whole trip worth it and the skiing is a bonus.

Between the east and west summits we check out our first conquest of the day which is called the Gardiner headwall. It is looking like good corn snow and we are psyched with anticipation of a great run. A few little slides on either flank tell us that there is a need to pay attention – ACHTUNG BABY!

It is so good that we are all hooting it up half way down like a bunch of owls. After a brief hike we are back at the road and decide to have lunch on the exposed rocks. This had nothing to do with the scantily clad young women who were soaking it up there, honest. It’s about a mile drive over to the ridge and then we are looking down at all kinds of sweet big mountain drops that would make the Warren Miller boys salivate.

After a few misfires we found a great line that took us almost to our drop point. I’ll let the photo of this line speak the thousand words, but in a word it was AWESOME. Back into the rig we head up to pick-up the rig on the summit so we can set ourselves up to ski yet another big line called the Rock Creek headwall.

The headwall was about the size of most ski areas and dropped straight down to the third to last switchback on the Pass. Cold PBR’s were waiting for us and on the trip back we just sat there in stunned silence because we hadn’t seen a sole all day long accept for our first descent.

If you go ski the Beartooth Pass Pass stop by Red Lodge, Montana and check out the Spires at Red Lodge and have dinner at the Bridge Creek. You can’t beat the small town hospitality in Red Lodge, so make a weekend out of it.

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