Big Sky Resort exists because a television anchor wanted to build something at home. Chet Huntley, the Montana-raised co-anchor of NBC’s Huntley-Brinkley Report, retired from broadcasting in 1970 and threw himself into developing a ski and summer resort in the Gallatin Canyon. The resort opened in December 1973. Huntley died in 1974, a few months after it opened.
The early years were rocky, and in 1976 the property was sold to Boyne USA, the Michigan company run by Everett Kircher. The Kircher family still controls Boyne, and Big Sky is now its largest property.
Building the mountain
Boyne’s long bet was on terrain. The Lone Peak Tram, opened in 1995, carried skiers to the 11,166-foot summit and gave the resort its signature run. In 2008 Big Sky combined its terrain with neighboring Moonlight Basin and later marketed more than 5,800 skiable acres, putting it among the largest ski areas in the United States.
In 2016 Boyne announced the Big Sky 2025 plan, a ten-year program of new lifts and lodges. It brought North America’s first eight-seat chairlift, Ramcharger 8, and a replacement for the original tram that opened in 2023.
The local economy
Big Sky is unincorporated, split between Gallatin and Madison counties, and funded largely by a resort tax on goods and services. The resort and the development around it have created a year-round economy in a canyon that once had a few ranches and a dude lodge, along with the problems that follow: a shortage of housing for workers, heavy traffic on U.S. 191 and rising property values.
Those pressures are why projects like workforce housing get as much attention in Big Sky as new lifts do.