Big Sky, Montana, United States
Cinco de Mayo is also my cousin Deb’s birthday, so she and
her husband John invited me to join them for a birthday Sunday drive and short
hike near Big Sky, the main ski resort in the area and one of the biggest in
the country. The ski season ended two
weeks ago and the current early-May “mud season” one about the lowest of low
seasons around the mountain. Getting
there from Bozeman is a pretty 45-mile drive toward the mountains and then
through Gallatin Canyon, the narrow canyon of the Gallatin River that leads up
toward the higher altitude country west of Yellowstone National Park.
I skied at Big Sky for a day on a visit ten years ago and
plan to be back plenty in the ski seasons ahead, but things have changed a lot
in ten years as the mega-resort has undergone phenomenal growth. My agenda then was skiing, so I didn’t do any
touring of the other sights in the area, of which there are a few manmade ones.
The Soldier’s Chapel which stands near the turnoff to Big
Sky memorializes the Montana soldiers of the 163rd Infantry Battalion
who fought in WWII.
Lone Peak, Big Sky’s iconic mountain is framed stunningly in
the chapel’s front window in a way which that the natural world/God’s creation
is rarely such a focus of a church. Second stop was the Big Sky Community
Church, a more recent building by the community where various denominations
rent out times in the same space for church services. The highlight here is the
great stained-glass windows each depicting a different area wildflower.
Third was the nearby Crail Ranch Homestead Museum, one of
the original valley homesteads from the late 1800s that’s now surrounded by
suburban development. Deb commented on
the moose droppings on the ground as we walked toward the ranch house. It wasn’t until about 10 minutes later that
we noticed who was responsible for them – a big bull moose relaxing quietly
between two houses that back onto the golf course. In Montana wildlife is everywhere, including
the small herd of Bighorn ewes we saw on the hillside near the chapel.
The focus of our trip was the hike to Ouzel Falls, a very
easy 1.6-mile roundtrip walk partly on a paved trail through the forest to an
impressive waterfall on one of the smaller tributary forks of the Gallatin
River on the edge of the Big Sky community. With 400 feet of elevation gain and
loss over those 1.6 miles, it seemed to me more like a warmup walk for a more
serious day trek. Much of it is through the small canyon the river carves below
the falls. It’s a hike with an
impressive final destination as a reward with numerous overlooks below and
above the falls.
Even a short hike can make you hungry and even more so thirsty. Being about the lowest of the low season around
the resort, not much was open for dining on Sunday afternoon, not even the
local Mexican joint on Cinco de Mayo. We ended up back at Lone Peak Brewery for
some brews and dinch (that meal halfway between lunch and dinner of which most
brunch-goers seem to be unaware). Montana has more breweries per capita than
any state other than Vermont, so they’re the place to go after outdoor
activities. There are certainly fancier places around for birthday dinners, but
beers and burgers are pretty much our style.
2025-05-22