Blacktail Mountain Ski Area

The view from Blacktail Ski Area

Blacktail Ski Area is a new ski area, first opening its lifts during the 1999-2000 ski season. Blacktail is located in NW Montana, in the mountains outside the Flathead Valley. The nearest town, Lakeside, is 17 miles away while the largest major town, Kalispell, is 35 miles.

Blacktail Ski area, like most other ski areas in Montana, is a “traditional ski area.” What this means is that it caters to local skiers or out-state skiers who seek to be away from crowds, condominiums and other fancy amenities. As Blacktail is a ski area – not a property development company that happens to have a ski area – the cost to go skiing at Blacktail is very affordable.

Moreover, Blacktail is very affordable by ski area standards today. As such, Blacktail caters to the family skier – and the safe, well groomed trails make for a good place to unleash the kids for a day of downhill skiing.

The Skiing at Blacktail Mountain

Blacktail is a great ski hill, but it doesn’t cater to everyone. As you can see by the vital stats, 85% of the terrain at Blacktail is rated for beginners and intermediate skiers. The remaining 15%, while rated at the expert level, for the most part falls a bit short of what I would consider “expert level”. Generally, good intermediate skiers can make their way down any ski trail at Blacktail unless skiing conditions are difficult due to heavy snow or ice.

But, if you are not an expert skier and like to ski on groomed intermediate trails, you will definitely like Blacktail. 70% of the ski trails at Blacktail are rated for the intermediate skier. The intermediate ski runs at Blacktail are all excellent trails, with a nice mix of twists, turns and a few steeper sections thrown in. These intermediate ski runs are also very well groomed – making it easy for long, carved turns. You get great views from skiing on these runs, too.

Beginner skiers will also enjoy Blacktail. Blacktail has a decent variety of beginning terrain, all of which is well groomed and not packed full of skiers. Additionally, Blacktail Mountain has a highly regarded, and friendly, ski school. It is, in particular, a very “kid friendly” ski school – being both affordable and having a staff that is well trained in dealing with young, new skiers.

So, what about if you are an expert skier? Should you not even bother with Blacktail?? Of course not! While Blacktail does not have the most challenging of terrain in Montana, it does have a nice gladed area that provides good tree skiing during favorable snows. Moreover, even if you are an advanced skier, it is always fun to hit a new ski area – and Blacktail does have an enjoyable network of ski runs that are excellent places to polish up on your technique or carved turns.

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