Great Divide Ski Area
A Family Affair
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It’s not uncommon for a ski resort to promote itself as offering something for the whole family, but it would be hard to imagine another ski area anywhere being more family oriented than Great Divide Ski Area. Full-service daycare? Check. Exemplary kids’ ski lessons? Check. Terrain parks for the young shredders? Check. Sure, Great Divide checks off all the boxes, but its family-friendliness is more than these boxes. Because it doesn’t simply cater to families — it is a family.
Let’s go back a bit. It’s the ’90s, and Tim Crawford takes a friend up on a challenge to start teaching skiing. That friend just happens to own Belmont Ski Area, the hill that's now known as Great Divide Ski Area and has been Helena's local ski spot since 1941. Tim doesn’t necessarily take to it immediately, but before long, he’s hooked. He’s up at Great Divide every chance he gets, his young family in tow — the whole gang sliding on snow and having a great time. Tim’s son, Travis, is all in. “I first brought him up here when he was 4 years old and it was like he was born to do it. He just became good — fast,” Tim reminisces.
Before long, Travis is so into it, he’s getting up at 4 a.m. to help groom the slopes before heading off to school. He’s learning everything he can about how the lifts run, and he’s skiing all the time.
Next thing you know, Travis — grown up, married and with kids of his own — joins a group that buys Great Divide.
And there you have it. Travis and his wife make up 50 percent of the ownership team. Travis is general manager and his father is a ski instructor and coach. It’s a family reunion every day they open the lifts.
So it should come as no surprise or coincidence that Great Divide Ski Area focuses so much on creating a welcoming and memorable family experience. But it’s their understanding of what that means that sets them apart. “Most often people immediately go to ticket pricing. We work very hard to keep our ticket prices low. We have great season pass deals. We try to make skiing affordable, which I think is a very important piece to the puzzle. But I think the more important and more often overlooked piece is the team that's behind us,” Travis says. “They all have that relaxed family-style atmosphere and that conveys to our guests from the moment you enter the parking lot, all the way through hopefully the end of your day skiing.”
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Travis and the ownership team have made some physical changes to the ski area since taking over in January 2020 — a new mid-mountain lodge, a new patrol building and a new concrete patio among them — but have worked to maintain the laid-back feel of simpler times. When you’re here, you can’t help but feel like you’ve stepped back in time — back to the days that Tim looks back on with fondness, when he and his brothers would be outside all day because Mom and Dad said, “Don’t come back until the street lights are on.” There’s a sense that what Great Divide has ultimately created is a safe environment for families to spend a winter day outside together. For parents, there is nothing higher on the priority list. “I was talking with a friend yesterday and we were talking about Great Divide. And he grew up here and now his sons are growing up here,” says Travis. “He was talking about, ‘Where else can you let your 9-year-old just go for an entire day?’ He saw him, I think, twice. And one of the times was when he came by and asked for a credit card to buy some cheesy fries.”
Letting kids loose in a mountain winter wonderland sounds like enough, but Great Divide also offers a place for more directed growth. Generations of Helena kids have learned to ski under the tutelage of Tim Crawford and his crew. You don’t have to spend much time with Tim to understand why it’s a popular way to learn to ski. His joy is infectious. “Riding a chairlift with kids is always interesting. You never know what topic you're going to get or what discussion you're going to get. But the growth — actually taking a child from a snowplow, a wedge, a pizza, whatever you want to call it, up to using all four edges — is pretty rewarding. And it takes time to teach them that there's four edges on a pair of skis. There's some mathematics involved. That part they aren’t usually interested in,” Tim shares.
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The umbrella of family involvement covers the age spectrum. “There are very few sports you can do your whole life,” waxes Tim. “I'm over 70 years old and I’m still skiing. And I’m skiing with my grandson, you know, and so as far as a family goes, grandpa can ski with grandkids, mom and dad. You see babies out there in their parents' arms skiing. And then you see the next size up, you know, and they might have a leash on them. And they're all just, ‘whee!’ Even the babies in their arms are going, ‘whee!’ My aunt is still skiing and she's 10 years older than I am, and she's a great skier. How many sports can you think of where you can do it to, what, 85, 90 years old? I don't know when I'm going to stop.”
There are 15 different ski areas spread across the state of Montana. And as Travis points out, being small, independent ski areas, each is free to become its own thing, to build its own personality and specialty. At Great Divide, the vibe is about multiple generations laughing and sharing time sliding down snow-covered slopes. If Travis and the Great Divide team have their way, it always will be.
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