MARYSVILLE, Mont. — Up at Great Divide Ski Area, staff have been hard at work all summer long getting the mountain prepped and ready to go for that first snowfall this winter. Here’s a look at what crews have been working on ahead of opening day.
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“A lot of people show up thinking, ‘Oh, it’s a ski hill, you’re open in the winter,’ but they don't really realize how much work actually goes into the summer to make sure that everything's safe and running properly,” said Micah Vitoff, Great Divide operations manager.
With 1,500 acres of skiable terrain to maintain, there’s no shortage of projects. The process starts as early as the previous January, when crews begin putting together a to-do list for the offseason.
“It’s everything from trails to lifts to heavy equipment to groomers to buildings,” said Travis Crawford, Great Divide general manager. “Pretty much everything that you see on this mountain gets touched at some point through the summer.”
Once the snow melts, crews begin clearing trails using a new skid steer with a rotating mower for the main runs, while chainsaw crews handle smaller growth. They’ve also been cleaning up damage left over from last winter’s major wind event.
Other projects include replacing the upper lift house for the Meadow Mountain chairlift, replacing one of the staircases and other various smaller projects. Crawford said this summer, staff narrowed in on maintenance after a few summers in a row with major construction, including the new base lodge patio build last year.
Safety remains the top priority, especially on the lifts. This summer, crews shortened the Good Luck Chair haul rope — a process that is typically only done about once every decade. Work includes taking down the lift chairs themselves, lowering the rope, removing a 10-foot section of the cable, and splicing the new ends together before connecting it back to the towers.
“The lifts only have so far they can move,” Crawford said. “As the rope stretches and we start to get closer to those limits, we need to make sure that we can move it forward.”
The mountain logs about 2,000 hours of chairlift maintenance each year, testing every safety feature before the season begins.
For the 10 full-time summer staff members, the long hours are worth it once people start hitting the slopes.
“High-fiving those kids and seeing the old guys who know the old terrain and recognize that we’ve done a lot of work, it’s such a good feeling,” Vitoff said.
Even though winter is still a few months away, crews at Great Divide will continue finishing maintenance, tuning and waxing rental skis, and preparing the mountain through opening day.
