Bridger Bowl Turns 50

Bridger Bowl's first tow rope. Photo courtesy of Gallatin County Historical Society.

Bridger Bowl celebrates 50th birthday by Jean Arthur

Names like Devil's Dive and Crazy Women might scare away a less-than-robust recreationalist, but not the Bridger Bowl faithful who await the Bozeman ski area's annual December opening like kids for candy.

For 50 years, skiers and later snowboarders corralled the kids, packed the picnic and headed up Bridger Canyon, 16 miles north of Bozeman, to Bridger Bowl Ski Area.

"In the early years of Bridger Bowl," says Terry Abelin, '72, Acct, "an expert was someone who could link a couple of turns without falling down." Abelin recently retired after 40 years volunteering and working at Bridger.

The oft-told story of the mountain's genesis begins with homemade rope tows. One tow climbed Peet's Hill in Abelin's backyard, another laced Pine Hill, and a third lift in Bear Canyon treated beginners to the snow sport. The hills sometimes lacked sufficient snow, so in the mid 1940s, ski enthusiasts sought new territory in the Bridger Mountains where higher elevation and dependable snow suited snowplows and Stem Christies.

The first rope tow was installed in 1951 at what was then called the Bridger Mountain State Park, but it wasn't until January 1955, with community support and tireless work of volunteers, that Bridger Bowl officially opened.

MSU students and staff joined the effort. Lacking funds to buy a lift mechanism, volunteers built a 2,600-foot-long platter tow. The warming hut, erected from the college's castoff prefab buildings, formed shelter at the site of today's Deer Park Chalet.

From the exodus of Bear Canyon, to the beginnings of Bridger, impetus for a ski area was directed at recreation. According to Wally Eagle, '50 AppSci, ski teams from Gallatin County High School and the college trained and competed in downhill, slalom and jumping.

"My first ski race was at Bear Canyon the winter of 1945-46," says Eagle. The West Yellowstone native skied for Gallatin High, then MSC and later coached and taught at the high school. Eagle and his ski team helped dig towers for the second lift in 1957, and they worked as "grunts" for Montana Power Company employees who hung the cable and installed the bullwheel mechanism of the lift.

"It was a homemade platter-pull made by many volunteers," says Eagle, who still skis 40 to 50 days a year. "If you weren't very heavy, the thing would lift you up in the air in some places. The trick was to spin a 360 or a 720 between towers."

Hundreds of MSU students took classes, "ski P.E.," at Bridger Bowl beginning in 1955. MSU ski team coach Bob Beck held the first courses, teaching the Arlberg style, upper body rotation, skis together, and "Bend Z knees!"

Bridger grew from a handful of woolie skiers to upwards of 180,000 skier-visits a year; the ski area beat the odds. Many mountains no longer operate: West Yellowstone's Lion Head, Ennis' Jack Creek, Butte's Beef Trail and of course Bear Canyon, where current winter visitors climb to ski.

Some Bridger skiers do earn their turns by climbing a few hundred steps above the Bridger Lift to the Ridge, where on peak days, hundreds of steeps-seekers collectively make upwards of 1,400 trips to the summit. Eagle recalls the 1960 NCAA nationals downhill race that started on the Ridge. And Abelin recalls his first trip to the 8,500-foot mark carrying dynamite to bust up the avalanche-prone cornices. Abelin became Montana's first USFS Snow Ranger in 1964, and says that in those days, he never dreamed that skiing would propagate moguls and the need for grooming.

Since then, the nonprofit ski area replaced old and added new lifts to the current seven chairlifts that allow riders to access 1,500 acres of terrain. This year the new Saddle Peak Lodge houses the ski patrol, race and cafeteria facilities, the Playcare Center and the Eagle Mount program for disabled skiers.

While the Bridger Bowl faithful entreaty the sky to drop a skier's manna called "Cold Smoke," the board of directors plan expansions to add 611 more acres of skiing.

"We have worked on the expansion and EIS process for seven and a half years," says Bridger's marketing director Doug Wales, '82 Psy. "We are optimistic that the forest service will allow us to expand. North, Bradley Meadows has an Alp-like feeling and a wider range of terrain for intermediates. It will add new Ridge skiing for experts too. Slushman's (south) is an attractive area for upper intermediates to experts with a long, sustained pitch of over 2,000 vertical feet. The expansion will be a big boost for skiing and for the future given the growth of area, but our goal is to maintain the quality of the environment."