Big Sky, Montana

We spent New Years in Big Sky, Montana with my extended family.  When they say "the biggest skiing in America" they aren't kidding!

We stayed in a wonderful home ("Twin Lift Lodge") that was across the street from the White Otter chair lift.  We could actually put our skis on by the front door and ski down the driveway to the chairlift, which whisked us over towards the main base area.

The house was great for our family because it had a couple different sitting areas, so the kids could be playing in front of the fire while my brother and dad vegged in front of the bowl games.  It had tons of windows with great views of the mountains, including Lone Peak (the highest peak in the area).  One down side was that there weren't enough dining chairs for everyone to eat together.  We had 13 people but there were only 6 chairs at the table and 4 seats at the bar.  Not a big deal, just something to note.

Points to Note:

• the driveway to our house was steep, but not too steep.  we didn't know what to expect, but I think in the future, I would always call to find out what the driveway was like, considering we aren't super experienced winter drivers.  there was some other homes on our street that had REALLY steep driveways!
• Big Sky resort has a great parking set up - we could pull right up to the main base area and park for 15 minutes for free to drop off folks for ski lessons and daycare.  they also had a quick shuttle system between the free lots and the main base area - the little kids thought it was pretty fun to ride this open air shuttle (essentially a trailer with benches on it towed by a truck) and it was smooth and efficient
• that said, I couldn't imagine doing Big Sky without a car - there are a lot of different housing options but most of them seem like they are too far away to just walk to the lifts
• take the first day to acclimate!  for the second year in a row, we spend the first day visiting in the cabin, not skiing.  this has really helped me to acclimate to the altitude, and makes the rest of the week more enjoyable
• there's only one road up the mountain to the base of the ski area!  we went down to the Meadow Village to shop on our last day and we got stuck for 20 minutes because a truck was blocking traffic up the mountain.  We needed to get back up the mountain to pick up the babies from daycare, and thankfully my mom was able to pick them up because we weren't moving.  I started to panic about not getting back in time to pick up M, so in the future, I need to plan better so that I can avoid this type of thing! 

All in all, it was a fantastic trip.  The skiing was unforgettable, even the last day where I nearly got blown off and then stuck on the lift (yes, both!), and then nearly panicked trying to ski back to the base due to the crazy high gusty winds - future post to come on that!