Yellowstone Club, Mar. 6, 2026

[Tony Crocker]

But some lifts are really residential only.

On the Big Sky map I know about and have skied at least some of the ones at left in the former Spanish Peaks. The ones at lower right I did not know existed!

As for the Yellowstone Club map, it makes sense that most of the homes are built on the mellow south facing side of Andesite. There are relatively few homes on Pioneer Mountain by comparison.

 

[MarzNC]

On the Big Sky map I know about and have skied at least some of the ones at left in the former Spanish Peaks. The ones at lower I did not know existed!

I've been on one of the "transportation lifts" below Lone Peak. Ski buddy took a wrong turn. He didn't see the brown trail sign when he left the groomer that went to the main base and was going too fast to hear me yell. We ended up wandering around among houses after going down onto a road instead of continuing on snow on the bridge over that road. A car drove by and told us where to go to get onto a trail that would lead to the base of a lift. That trail was almost flat. The lift was a very, very slow double.

During an EpicSki Gathering at Big Sky, a friend booked a ski in/out condo that used a transportation lift. He was pretty happy.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Powder Mountain. Now quasi-private with both old and new terrain for both public and private members.

Most of the terrain is still public, and with Utah's explosive population growth Powder Mt.'s under the radar status was not going to last. It's only a question of how it would be managed. Reed Hastings has chosen to manage it by price to preserve the historical low skier density. Solitude is the example of the opposite strategy.

Mayflower --> now Deer Valley East. Links to Deer Valley could not suffice, sold. Neither could they operate it properly with heavy snowmaking and low snowfall.

Jury is still out. 2025-26 was surely a worst case scenario, but there have been 3 other seasons since 2012 where Mayflower would have had gradual openings and crappy surfaces most of the season. I doubt Mayflower was ever seriously considered as a private resort.

Wasatch Peaks Ranch. Pure Yellowstone Club, but without the anchor of a Big Sky.

The topography, location/access, primary east exposure and climatology are almost a clone of Snowbasin. I don't like that the base elevation of lifts is 6,100, lower than either Snowbasin or Mayflower. Google Earth shows there is also a golf course though I don't see hardly any homes yet.

Cimarron Mountain Club. Pure Yellowstone Club model without the anchor resort.

Ends of the earth location, modest vertical, generic terrain and I suspect not abundant snowfall.

When you consider snow preservation factors (altitude/latitude/exposure), I contend Yellowstone Club has overall better snow reliability than all of the above.

Yellowstone Club has two important advantages over all of these possible copycats. The obvious is that it was the first one on a resort-scale western mountain. How many such places can the market support?

The other part is that Yellowstone Club is in a far superior location for summer tourism. It's not an accident what it chose for its name for extra cachet.

Attachment to Big Sky may have helped lure some members to join, but once there I suspect utilization is not that high.