Big Sky . . . a Big Mistake

As I sit in this small efficiency condo about 400 ft.² in floor area, with heat and electricity included, I am happy being free of thinking daily about crazy fuel costs. Emily and I are cozy and snug while looking through the window at the Big Sky Mountain. But haunting my good feelings is my mind wondering in the background…. Why …Who… and How has this place become one of the biggest examples of environmental, economic, and cultural ethics decay, disrespect, and destruction I have witnessed?

Emily and I came to Big Sky not to ski the mountain proper but to Nordic ski the small trails, glades, riverbed areas in the area, and to enjoy the yearly West Yellowstone Nordic ski Festival. We had no idea we were renting a condo

‘on the mountain’. When we arrived in a snowstorm we realized that we were to drive up a 7-mile road resembling a mountain pass to reach our condo. This ‘ski area access road’ is the place of death of travelers marked by white crosses and ‘lil’ johnny’s snowboard and flower arrangement.

The car road access arrangement is just the ‘foot-road’ to further ridiculousness in its access. Once at the mountain base a striking view of the Big Sky Mountain reveals that it has no summit! Man has removed the mountain’s very symbolic apex, a ‘symbolic of those places that we humans have to be strong to reach’. All this is to accommodate a tram tower to allow skiers of any fitness level to attain its summit.

The tram is the ultimate symbol of Big Sky and it’s associated accommodations and accessories found here. With capital to burn in the form of dynamite this majestic mountain has had no chance. Nor it’s valley, nor it’s glade, nor it’s natural passes.

The development of this tram is supposed to represent a triumph of man’s technological ability to access anything, anywhere anytime. With such a success all else in the periphery lay in a similar path ….the co modification and quelling of even the symbolic mountain, the supposed prize of the natural world.

When I think of a mountain and the ascending of it I envision a long arduous endeavor with the summit only attained after a process of strenuous climbing and perseverance. When I think of mountain living I think of small cabins fitting where they can be reached not by car but by foot. These envisioned cabins have a wisp of smoke coming from their thin stovepipes exemplifying simple heating system. Skis line the perimeter of the decks. The cabins interior is cozy, but not crammed, still allowing views of the grand natural place in which they are built. I think of simple accommodations that bring one back to the essence of primitive life, exemplified by a hearth for warmth, a place for our friendships, and re-acquaintance with our family or loved ones to flourish.

The Big Sky resort and peripheral housing and lodging represent the destruction and abuse of my idealistic, naive, and maybe old-fashioned principles. I believe the direction that this resort has headed is wrong. Big Sky development exemplifies the deterioration of our cultures ethics and aspirations, and exemplifies greed, wanton destruction of natural places, and shortsightedness. Big sky has driven its cruel stake through the very heart of the Mountain that it reveres for its challenges. The corporate and safety culture have reduced this mountain into a Disney land like co-modified experience. Every Banker, realtor, engineer, architect, contractor/builder has lowered their eyes to the wreckage they assist to prosper.

Everyone bows to the moneyman to get a piece of the pie. In the end what do they have to show for it? A decapitated Mountain accessible to any doughy family with cash. These people who prosper from the destruction of symbolic environments (the mountains, rivers, high natural passes) are seemingly exempt from making appropriate decisions. Even the financial decisions they have made are corrupt, delusional, and lack foresight.

Yesterday Emily and I woke to clear skies. We went for a walk along a small creek heading up the mountain; it was beautiful as long as we ignored the power line running overhead up to Moonlight Basin ski area. We felt freedom in the hills as long as we didn’t approach the massive lodges to the right and left that corner the creek and its populace of small animals. The Elk have long considered this place a lost cause, much like we consider those concrete parking areas around passé malls in and around almost every town in America lost causes.

We tried to avoid a massive 10,000 ft.² uninhabited single family “cabin”, we didn’t want to trespass. We wandered through some beautiful forests then popped up onto yet another traversing access road, accessing higher ‘cabins’. At one point we looked out and yes the eyes found the horizon, a ridgeline of imposing peaks. However, the foreground was unforgivable. Every which way a traversing, blasted in access road, to a modern stylized ‘cabin’ mansion cleaved recklessly into the hillside. In places the clefts are so big that massive condo complexes abound teetering on the edge. The pure acreage that the parking lots and buildings occupy makes it seem as if we were looking down on any suburban place in America. Not a single soul moved. These buildings are unoccupied ‘the ski season’ is not yet.

This whole ecological disaster with its associated sewage problems, energy infrastructure, and run-off issues has been speculatively imposed on this hill, (I can’t call it a mountain, its just too beat up) someone’s idea of a good investment. We climb higher hoping to escape the horrible truths of mans floundering existence and imposed wreckage.

We pass a sign that says that we are not allowed higher. This is Big Sky property. So here it be that even the mountain is owned as a real-estate endeavor. We break the law. We move up a slope where snowmaking ‘turbines’ have been blowing ‘man made’ snow. Even the neve’ is fake. The ski resort must guarantee that winter comes….even if mother nature is slow to crank up her ‘snow gun’. There are many condos and upscale lodges that need to be filled for ski season…snow must be a certainty.

As we all know our economy is in a bad place. Could it be that these places that were built during times of excess will never be occupied? And what becomes of behemoths if never sold? This whole system is contingent on cheap oil, electricity, and affluence. Not one of the homes even attempts to be sustainable in scale, energy saving, or material modesty. The mountains snowmaking is a prime example of energy just blown into the sky.

A lone father and son with helmets and goggles come down the icy slope bouncing hard on the ice paved way. They drove their car to this point 8500 ft. to enjoy ‘early winter”.

I wonder if this economy further fails who will be able to afford the $78/day plus accommodations, and food? Not many from what Emily and I see today, on opening day so few skiers are here, how can this place stay alive? As with most corporations there must be guarantees that some many trails, lifts, and acreage are open even if there are not the skiers to occupy them.

As we walk down the yet to open, rock covered ski trail we feel like we should not be there, Emily reminded me that we are trespassing. We wonder if we will get in trouble with a ski patrol. I tell Emily, if asked why we are there to just say “nanu, nanu” and raise the hand split fingered like Mork, Mindys friend.

We walk down under the lift which transports helmeted skiers with very wide skis upwards. Some look down at us wondering, I suppose, why we are walking there? Why are they not taking the lift? One guy looks like actually he is upset that we are on ‘their’ mountain….only made by god for the skiers.

Whatever has become of our world? Whatever became of us? Mechanized, safety clad humans hiding behind helmets, seemingly sexless, without self identity or critical thinking. We have become robots marching/skiing/driving towards a cliff that no amount of blasting will make safe. When, if ever, will we realize that the legacy we have are leaving the next generations is a mess, natural wonders of the world desecrated, scars that wont go away anytime too soon. Could we put behind our ego and greed to ensure these special natural features remain unaltered, and maybe difficult to get to without hard work? Or to run the current path, one leading to ghost towns of condos, uninhabited, or crumbling paved ways leading to phantom mansions. Our future generations have one thing to learn from Big Sky, what a disaster, what short sightedness, what greedy minded individuals prospered here.