Blacktail Ski Area finishes record season

It’s 15 years and counting for Blacktail Mountain Ski Area and general manager Steve Spencer isn’t looking back.

Spencer, who co-founded the ski resort west of Lakeside, said it completed its most successful season ever Sunday.

“It’s been great, a record year,” he said, despite a warm winter and the resort not having as many powder days as he would like. “It was a great season overall. We grow a little bit every year.”

Spencer said Blacktail Mountain is becoming a regional resort, a change from its days as a local ski area.

Most visitors come from within a three-hour drive of Lakeside, but because of the resort’s proximity to Whitefish Mountain Resort, “We get more destination skiers,” he said.

This past Christmas, for example, more than 50 percent of Blacktail’s visitors were destination skiers, according to Spencer.

Blacktail’s business has been growing mainly from word-of-mouth, Spencer said. “Canadians network. If we get them once, we get them back, especially families,” he said. Canadians come to Blacktail for variety, or to stretch their dollar, or loonie, as it’s called. “You could spend two days here versus one there” at Whitefish Mountain Resort, Spencer said, noting lift ticket prices are considerably less at Blacktail. Children seven and under ski for free as do fifth-graders. The fifth-grade idea is something he adapted from another ski area. “It’s worked well for us,” Spencer said. “Whole families in Missoula will buy a season pass just because they have a fifth-grader.”

Blacktail Mountain employs 85 to 90 people during the ski season, plus an additional 12-15 who work in the restaurant, which is part of John’s Angels Catering. The company completed its first season at Blacktail this year.

Most of Blacktail’s workers are part-time, but not Spencer. “I haven’t missed a day in 15 years,” he said. He stays busy in the summer doing maintenance and mowing, for example. Spencer started Blacktail Mountain Resort along with Dennis Carver, Tom Sands and Jeff Sorg, who helped with engineering, surveying and building. The business opened in 1998, and is fairly unique as it has been the only ski resort permitted on federal land since Beaver Creek in Vail in the 1970s.

Spencer, who was mountain manager at Big Mountain for 27 years prior to starting Blacktail, laid out Blacktail’s ski runs and lifts.

His vision has come to fruition. “We’re still fairly new,” he said.