Iconic summer ski area in Montana up for sale

Beartooth Basin Summer Ski Area, “the only strictly summer ski area in the nation,” is being sold.

“For sale” is spelled out in large red letters on the ski area’s website over the top of a photo of the steep mountainside and its lift towers.

“We’d like to see somebody buy it who has the financial wherewithal to bring it to its potential,” said co-owner and operations manager Austin Hart.

“Much like most business that sell in this world, the owners are looking for a change,” Hart wrote in an email. “We are a dynamic ownership group, each with separate careers and businesses that we manage in addition to Beartooth Basin. We would like to see our operation reach its highest potential, which we currently don’t have the resources for. We feel that we have improved this operation and left it better than when we started, and we would be happy to extend that opportunity to future owners.”

Since the news went our, he said there’s been a lot of interest. Although owning a remote, high-altitude summer ski area may appeal to a buyer’s romantic side, Hart said it’s a lot of work keeping the lifts turning.

“It’s always been a community ski hill, that’s important to our customers,” he said, adding it would be nice to continue that tradition.

“Going to the right home is the most important part of this.”

Although the Shoshone National Forest oversees management of the land, the two high-speed Doppelmayr surface lifts, three snowcats, a portable diesel generator, seven trailers and all of the tools and equipment to operate the remote facility are for sale.

Hart would not reveal the asking price.

“We are entertaining all serious offers, and ultimately we are going to find out what the current market value is for one of the most unique ski operations in the Nation and World for that matter,” he wrote. “What would you pay for your slice of heaven?”

The ski area runs under a 20-year permit from the Forest Service, which allows operation on 90 acres with 1,000 feet of vertical descent. Sale of the facilities would not automatically mean a transfer of the permit, according to Casey McQuiston, of the Shoshone National Forest. He said there would be a process to ensure the new owners were capable of running the ski area.

The lifts did not open this year due to a lack of snow, despite the Beartooth Highway that accesses the area closing twice following snowstorms. All of the snow came in May, Hart said.

Last season was shorter than normal following unfavorable weather when Hart said it rained in May.

“The climate is so variable it’s hard to leverage your whole business on,” he said.

Despite the difficulties, Hart said last year was decent financially and the lifts “passed all inspections with no deficiencies.”

The ski area dates back to the 1980s when the two lifts were installed by Red Lodge ski instructor and Austrian immigrant Pepi Gramshammer. Along with Eric Sailer and Anderl Molterer, the men established the Alpine Ski Racing summer training ground at the site geared mainly to wealthy East Coast ski racers.

Yet skiers had been exploring the area without lift service since the 1930s, when the Beartooth Highway was finished over the 10,900-foot-high pass along the Montana-Wyoming border.

Also known also as the Beartooth Scenic Byway for its expansive mountain views, the nearly 68-mile stretch of road connects Red Lodge to Cooke City at Yellowstone National Park’s Northeast Entrance.

Even without lift service, skiing and snowboarding is popular atop the pass on steep slopes like Reefer Ridge or the Gardner Lake and Rock Creek headwalls, all of which require hikes either to reach the starting point, or to climb out at the end. Depending on the year, the snow may last into July.

It was Red Lodge resident Rob Hart and his partner Kurt Hallock who opened the ski area to the public in 2003. Rob’s nephew, Austin Hart, took over as operations manager in 2011 following Rob’s death. That year the name was changed from Red Lodge International Summer Ski and Snowboard Camp to Beartooth Basin. The vibe changed once the ski area opened to the public, attracting ski bums from around the world and hosting slopestyle events for snowboarders and free skiers.

Hart’s partners in the adventure include Hallock, an attorney, former competitive free skier Justin Modroo and David Leuschen. Leuschen is owner of the Switchback Ranch in the Crazy Mountains and a Yellowstone Club member, an exclusive Big Sky ski resort.

With a short season and difficult access, running the business has never been easy. Twice the highway has been shut down. That happened most recently in 2022 when a historic flood washed out Highway 212 just south of Red Lodge. Prior to that, in 2005, mudslides wiped out several sections of the steep mountainside road just before its scheduled spring opening.

“I need this operation running for at least two weeks to even break even or really make it worth it,” Austin Hart told the Billings Gazette in 2017. “Breaking even really is a novelty in the ski business.”

As Hallock noted in a 2023 Missoulian story, maintaining the ski area for what can sometimes be a two-week season is exhausting. Avalanches, a common occurrence, can wipe out the lift towers. Access to the area for ski area personnel before the road opens is by snowcat, vehicles with tank-like tracks commonly used to groom commercial ski areas.

Adding to the difficulty are changing weather patterns sending more spring moisture as rain while winter snowfall has declined.

“The climate has changed so much that we can’t predict it,” Hallock said last season.