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But for 45 years, this small ski area on the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation in north-central Montana has scraped by on thrift and simplicity. Average annual snowfall is the lowest among 16 Montana ski destinations and Bear Paw's location, far east of the Rocky Mountains, hardly evokes alpine images.
Fortunately, making money never has been the goal here; Bear Paw is all about giving people a place to ski that is close to home and affordable.
A busy weekend is one with 175 people buying tickets to ski some of the two dozen trails and experience a 900-foot vertical drop. In a full season, Bear Paw gets about as many skier visits as Big Sky, a destination resort at the opposite end of Montana, draws in a single day.
Volunteers, who outnumber paid workers about 6-to-1, keep the payroll lean. Many come from the railroad town of Havre, 30 miles north. Even though they contribute their time, the volunteers buy lift tickets.
‘‘The only way these kinds of areas can make it is with volunteer help,'' said Dave Martens, a rural postmaster who is Bear Paw's volunteer manager on Saturdays and Sundays, the only days it's open. ‘‘Who wants to get paid? We get paid when we come here and get to ski.''
Skiers descend Screaming Eagle, Medicine Talk, Four Souls and other runs that have been carved over the years with a go-ahead from the reservation's Chippewa Cree Tribe.
The tribe would like to add a few amenities as part of an economic development plan for the reservation, a plan still largely conceptual. It includes construction of a lodge with a restaurant, a ski shop with rental equipment and most of all, the manufacture of snow to fill in when Mother Nature doesn't deliver.
Bear Paw opened this winter after not operating at all in 2005, for lack of snow.
‘‘You have goals that you're shooting for and if the weather doesn't want to cooperate, you're stuck,'' said Jason Belcourt, tribal parks and recreation director. Snowmaking is rule No. 1 in operating a sustainable ski area, said Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association.
Tribal officials say money has been the big obstacle to artificial snow. But in a first step, snowmaking is a designated use for part of the enlarged water capacity at a reservoir less than a mile from Bear Paw, said Jim Morsette, Chippewa Cree water resources director. But finding money to turn it into snow remains a challenge.
At one time the ski area had a lodge with a restaurant, but a fire destroyed it in the late 1980s.
For now, food service consists of hot dogs and burgers that volunteers cook at an outdoor grill next to a warming hut and a sign proclaiming ‘‘more than 3,000 served.'' Members of the Eagle Creek Ski Patrol go grocery shopping, haul the food from Havre, do the cooking and put any profit toward first-aid supplies, training and other expenses.
Any paying jobs at Bear Paw - presently there are four, all for lift operators - go to tribal members.
Other than the ski opportunity itself, the lift-ticket discount and a few jobs are about all the Chippewa Cree receive for having Bear Paw on the reservation. Belcourt said the volunteers who run the show, collectively known as the Snowdance Ski Association, pay the tribe $1 a year for use of the mountain.
‘‘We don't make any money, so they don't ask anything of us,'' said Claire Stoner of the association, which consists of 20-25 volunteers.
Sales of lift tickets - $18 for adults, $15 for tribal members - typically cover the cost of insurance, electricity, fuel for snow-grooming equipment and the lift operators' wages, Stoner said. Havre businesses that kick in $25 a year get their names displayed on the backs of lift seats, and in 2005 a supporter put up money for a large snow groomer bought secondhand from northwestern Montana's Big Mountain resort, 250 miles away.
Robert Morrison, a former Havre lawyer who retired to the Flathead Valley, helped establish Bear Paw.
‘‘It wasn't set up to make money,'' Morrison said. ‘‘We just wanted to survive - and ski.'' It seemed easier back then because the snowfall was more reliable, he said.
Operations began in 1961 with a poma lift and a rope tow. Years later, the tribe installed the chairlift. Half of the terrain is rated for advanced skiers. Beginners take it easy at Bikini Beach, where Jim Engelhardt of Havre recently guided his 2-year-old son across a smooth expanse of snow.
‘‘Every time it's open, we're here,'' said Engelhardt, who learned to ski at Bear Paw as a boy. ‘‘Good diversity, lots of friends. It makes for a good weekend. This is more relaxed than big ski hills.''
On the Net:
http://skibearpaw.com
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