Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/759669
W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA NA . C O M 15 Shredding Maverick View at: www.distinctlymontana.com/maverick171 DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL CONTINUED "Some of our powder stashes can hold up for a week or so because it's so dry," says Birkenbuel. "From the early season into February, we have some of the best powder in the state." Befitting the name of its mountain range, the Pioneers require visitors to be a little rugged and self-sufficient. ere are no ski-in condos or trendy après-ski hangouts. e closest thing to a spa is tiny and rustic Elkhorn Hot Springs three miles up the canyon. You're going to have to rough it a little bit. "ere's no crying at Maverick Mountain," laughs Birkenbuel. But there is a sense of small-town cul-de-sac community. "You can drop your kids off, and there's only one way up and multiple ways down, but someone is going to help your kid get down," says Birkenbuel. at spirit is the legacy of long-time owner Randy Shilling, who sold the ski area in December after having run it for 25 years. Shilling had set out to climb a mountain and ended up buying one instead: he had saved up money to climb Mount Everest, but on a visit to Whitefish someone told him about a cool little mountain in southwest Montana he had to ski, and once there the then- owner offered to sell it to him. So he invested his Everest nest-egg in a mountain a mere 20,000 feet shorter. It's also a vestige of small-ski romanticism that stretches back only to the interwar ski boom but feels deeply embedded in Amer- ican sport. It's a business model that's rapidly disappearing, owing to the proliferation of ski mega-corporations that have gobbled up small resorts, changing ski-consumer attitudes and several years of poor snowpack: a report by respected ski industry executive Bill Jensen last year predicted that nearly a third of the 470 ski areas in the United States will fail in the not-far-off future. New owner Erik Borge, a former ski racer and graduate of Montana State University-Bozeman, and his wife Kristi and their business partners — Borge's friend Isaac Flemmer and fellow ski racer Matt Migel — inherited a small operation in a fickle and weather-dependent seasonal industry. But they also inherited a community of employees and regulars committed to keeping the ski area afloat. Each time I've visited, I've returned raving to my ski buddies about the little ski hill in southwest Montana that they must ski to believe.