The Mountain Village of Big Sky is blessed with amazing beauty compliments of the Gallatin and Madison Mountain Ranges and more activities than a mere mortal could ever dream of doing. During summer you can fly-fish, hike, bike, raft, horseback ride, golf, camp, watch wildlife or simply relax and enjoy the scenery while trying to figure out how to do it all. Winter provides for some of the best downhill skiing in America; offering a combined 5600 acres of pure adventure. Nordic skiing, dog-sledding, trips to Yellowstone and moonlit sleigh ride dinners complete the winter experience.
Located midway between Bozeman and West Yellowstone, in southwestern Montana, Big Sky shares Gallatin Mountain splendor with its neighbor, Yellowstone National Park. In addition to extensive recreation opportunities and fine resort amenities, Big Sky is known for its breathtaking scenery, abundant wildlife, and gracious hospitality. Here you'll find much contrast, from casual fleece to western elegance from gentle meadows to the rugged magnificence of Lone Peak.
Big Sky Ski Resort is 3,812 acres of downhill skiing, snowboarding and snowshoe trails. Recognized for lack of lift lines, amazing steeps and the biggest skiing in America with the new Big Sky and Moonlight Basin interconnect.
Montana is known for its fly-fishing, and the Big Sky area is no exception. With the Gallatin River within minutes of any rental property in Big Sky or you could be fishing the World Famous Madison River in an hour, it is great for tourists and locals alike. The Big Sky Area has multiple local outfitters with trips for beginners to even the most experienced fishermen. Choose from a variety of trips including floating trips, walk/wade trips, and horse-pack trips. Please contact the following businesses for guided fishing information and locations to purchase you fishing license.
Winter’s nearly perpetual blue skies are interrupted in a timely fashion by millions of snowflakes that blanket the landscape, 400 inches of annual snowfall or three mountains with lots of elbow room. Lift lines are nonexistent here. The skiing and riding is the ultimate experience, explore the backcountry on snowshoes or take a relaxing sleigh ride. The choice, like Big Sky itself, is all yours.
For backcountry skiing you may with to venture next door to Beehive Basin, Porcupine Creek, or other parts of neighboring Gallatin National Forest, or tour Yellowstone National Park. Stop in the local shops for area maps, advice on trails, rental equipment and updated avalanche forecasts. The Cross-country skier will find 65 groomed kilometers of' nationally ranked' cross-country ski trails at Lone Mountain Ranch. Lessons, rentals, and guided tours are available. Or check out the Rendezvous Trails in West Yellowstone.
Mountain biking in and around the Big Sky area means miles of backcountry scenery, wildflowers, and wildlife, with few human encounters. Ski lift mountain bike access and forest roads offer off-pavement, out-of-traffic experiences. There are trails on and around the mountain which to explore. New beginner and advanced trails are being constructed this summer. Down-hillers can also find a plethora of trails to get their thrills on.
Big Sky’s proximity to Yellowstone provides dividends for the wildlife watcher and photographer, it's not everyday you get to see a bighorn sheep or bull elk, but at Big Sky it's a very frequent occurrence. Some spots that you are likely to see animals include: bighorn sheep at the entrance to Big Sky off Hwy. 191, elk and coyotes in the meadows of the Gallatin River headwaters in the northwest corner of Yellowstone Park, bison on the Madison River near West Yellowstone, moose and geese in the Big Sky Meadow Village, mountain goats in the high cliffs of Lone Peak and Beehive basin.
Most visitors get acquainted with Mother Nature during their Big Sky stay. Peace of mind will return the moment you pull on your hiking boots and explore the miles and miles of trails in our Gallatin National Forest. Right at the resort, you can elect the easier route by taking our scenic lift ride up the mountain and then enjoy a leisurely hike down to the base on our self-guided nature trails. Wildflowers, roaring streams, distant snow-clad peaks, and clean, crisp mountain air.
Yellowstone News
Greater Yellowstone ~ Window on the Wilderness 2011
The Movie
Winter Bison
64 Yellowstone bison headed for Montana tribal land
He stalled plan to repopulate the Plains with bison moved forward today, as 64 American icons from Yellowstone National Park were being transported to the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana, the Associated Press reports.................Tribal and state officials approved the transfer late Friday, but to avoid a court injunction the date was not revealed, said Robert Magnan, a tribal official with the Fort Peck Fish and Game Department................The genetically pure Yellowstone animals have been quarantined for several years since crossing over the park's northern boundary during their natural winter migration. All are free of brucellosis, which can cause the females to abort fetuses. Though the disease is rare in the United States, ranchers fear bison could transmit it to cattle. (It can also infect goats, pigs, dogs, camels and people.) Ranchers also worry that the bison will compete with their livestock and livelihood for range land.......................rest of story
Yellowstone's wildlife is a major attraction for the visiting photographer
Photographing Yellowstone ~ by Daryl L. Hunter
Yellowstone National Park has been a photography destination ever since Henry Jackson took the first photos of Yellowstone in 1872, Yellowstone's plethora of nature demands documentation from all who visit this world treasure. Yellowstone National Park welcomes photographers from across the country and from around the world to photograph its embarrassment of riches of natural wonders. Photographers come to document its pristine beauty and seasons of breathtaking contrasts: Scenic photographic opportunities abound, the wide-open grassy valleys, the perpendicular peaks of the Gallatin, Beartooth and Absaroka mountains. Yellowstone has hundreds of waterfalls, rivers that both gently meander through big valleys and writhing thorough whitewater canyons. This high mountain plateau attracts violent weather which makes wonderful accents too our earthly objects. More geysers than anywhere else on earth are here in Yellowstone waiting for the creative photographer capture eruptions of water at sunset. Colorful red and ocher mud pots, hot springs the deepest of blue outlined in orange and odd fumaroles dot the landscape of Yellowstone beaconing photographers from the other side of the world to take their story home......................... rest of story
Superlative Yellowstone by Daryl L. Hunter
Fountain Geyser, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park
OK let me dig deep into my reservoir of superlatives to adequately describe Yellowstone National Park, it is big, wild stunningly beautiful, and dynamic. Any description of Yellowstone will be filled with superlatives, yet words can never do it justice, but I will elaborate anyway; Yellowstone has the greatest concentration of thermal features in the world, up until 1,978 Yellowstone was the largest National Park in the country, One of the world's most spectacular canyons, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and its two majestic waterfalls cut 1,600 feet deep into the golden rhyolite laid down by the last major eruption 600 thousand years ago; as Yellowstone is one of the six super volcanoes of the world. It is home of the world's second largest high altitude lake nestled in the pit of the Yellowstone caldera; Magnificent mountain scenery rings the unique terrain of the Yellowstone volcanic plateaus. It is home to one of the largest concentrations of wildlife on the planet. And of course, it is home to, perhaps, the most famous geyser in the world, Old Faithful.............................................rest of story
Located midway between Bozeman and West Yellowstone, in southwestern Montana, Big Sky shares Gallatin Mountain splendor with its neighbor, Yellowstone National Park. In addition to extensive recreation opportunities and fine resort amenities, Big Sky is known for its breathtaking scenery, abundant wildlife, and gracious hospitality. Here you'll find much contrast, from casual fleece to western elegance from gentle meadows to the rugged magnificence of Lone Peak. 
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Big Sky’s proximity to Yellowstone provides dividends for the wildlife watcher and photographer, it's not everyday you get to see a 