Skiing in solitude

The Nordic trails at the Big Mountain Trailhead offer plenty of opportunity to enjoy winter with a little bit of quiet.

The Big Mountain trails are managed by the Glacier Nordic Club and opened officially in 2017.

Executive Director Cameron Blake says the trails provide something different for the town’s Nordic skiers.

“It’s for the intermediate to advanced skier, someone who wants a bit more of a backcountry experience,” she said. “There’s a lot of solitude, lots of trails that are spread out. We see serious Nordic skiers, but also we see people up there on skins, fat skis, snowshoes, fat tire bikes.”

The trailhead is located off Big Mountain Road, just short of Whitefish Mountain Resort.

Blake says the trails have been popular from the start.

While the official opening didn’t come until three years ago, she says the Nordic Club has been grooming in the area since 2012.

And when the trails did open for good, plenty of skiers flocked to them.

“It was busy right away. Particularly if the Glacier Nordic Center in town was not open,” she said.

While there hasn’t been a counter this year, last season the club counted almost 3,400 skiers at the upper trailhead.

Blake says the idea for the trails came about nearly 15 years ago, when she and others started brainstorming plans for skiing with a warming climate.

They decided to go higher, and when the land was secured as part of the Haskill Basin conservation easement finalized in 2016, the Nordic Club worked with Whitefish Legacy Partners to build the trailhead and Winter Sports Inc. for a recreation easement on the land.

Then last year, the trails added a lower parking lot off Reservoir Road.

“It’s really just in the last few years that everything has solidified and it’s now a 26 kilometer network with two trailheads,” Blake says.

Looking forward, Blake says she’d love to see the old Nordic trail system at Whitefish Mountain Resort connect back up to the Big Mountain trailhead, as well as some SNOW bus access for Nordic skiers in addition to downhill skiers and snowboarders.

“There’s actually the old Nordic trail that comes out of the tunnel from the Base Lodge. We’re hoping that now that the mountain knows people are parking down below, that if people could use the SNOW bus to access the Nordic trails and we could groom up to the old access, then that would offload the parking lots too,” she says.

The club is looking for support again this year, as they’ll be participating in the Great Fish Challenge to raise money for infrastructure and support.

Last year they also received a Recreation Trails Program grant for $20,000 to help cover a chunk of their grooming costs, which they applied for again for the coming winter season in 2021.

And while the Big Mountain trails are free, they’re still reliant on memberships to help fund the club.

“We’re just trying to get the word out that whatever way anybody can support the trails, please do,” Blake says.

For more information, visit www.glaciernordicclub.org.