Six miles west of town, Red Lodge Mountain has 1,635 vertical feet, 70 named runs, and lift queues that almost never form. It is not the biggest ski hill in Montana — Big Sky has triple the vertical — but it is one of the few that still feels like the era when locals built ski areas for themselves. The terrain is balanced across beginners and advanced, with a sustained mogul face on Cole Creek that intermediate skiers can survive and experts can savour.
The season runs from late November to early April, conditions permitting. The base lodge is plain and the food is plain, but lift tickets are roughly two-thirds the price of the nearest major resort. Summer brings mountain biking on lift-served trails, though hours are reduced.