Although not technically in Montana, the Beartooth Basin Summer Ski Area sits just inside the Wyoming border.  Tourists en route to Yellowstone’s northeast entrance are often befuddled as to the sight of a ski area along the Beartooth Highway.  The 600 acre ski area started in 1962 by three Austrians looking for a summer spot to train Olympic hopefuls from the US and Europe.  Pepi Gramshammer, Eric Sailer, and Anderi Molterer established what was to be known as the Red Lodge International Ski and Snowboard Camp.   The camp has been operating for 51 summers.  It served as a summer racing and training area until it was made open to the public in 2003.  Recently renamed as the Beartooth Basin Summer Ski Area, the area boasts nearly 1,000 vertical feet and two poma lifts.  The lifts were originally temporary and were later made permanent in the 1970s, but now the lifts are to be carefully excavated each spring with chainsaws.  Beartooth Basin is North America’s only summer specific ski area, and one of the oldest alpine training areas still in operation. 

Kayde E. Kaiser | University of Montana | Geography Department