New lift at Bridger adds a different dimension to classic Little Area

There has been a lot of buzz this year surrounding new lifts opening at resorts across the continent. Chief among them being the new Peak 2 Peak gondola at Whistler/Blackcomb and the new aerial tram at Jackson.

Perhaps lost among the sensation is a little recycled double chair installed at Bridger Bowl, Montana. While not as big in engineering terms or in capacity to move large numbers of people as the others, Bridger’s Schlasman’s lift is just as striking simply because of the terrain it serves. It also marks the first time in 30 years that Bridger Bowl—a nonprofit ski area—has expanded its lift-served terrain, adding more than 300 acres to the south, all of it double black diamond. If you’re famaliar with Jackson Hole, think of the new Schlasman’s (pronounded “Slushman’s”) as similar to what’s below the Sublette quad, which holds the reputation as accessing some of the sweetest terrain via chair in the country. The new Schalsman’s, however, is like Sublette many times over, without the crowds or long flat runouts. The shots off Schlasman’s are several hundred feet long, tight, steep, and admittedly frightening. The new chair also gives direct access to backcountry gates at Bridger, which are open this winter for the first time in its 53-year history.

Skiing it last week with a crew of locals, I descended a chute skier’s left of the chair. When I asked the longtime Bridger liftie known as Sandman what it was called, he simply said, “Don’t know.”

Then he gave a smile, and quietly made his signature turns down the slope much the same way he’s been shredding the hike-to areas of the Ridge his entire life. Only maybe he wasn’t as tired because he didn’t have to climb a bootpack first.

The new lift (formerly the old Peruvian double at Snowbird, Utah, which has been retrofitted with new padded seats, a fresh cable, and slick paint job) rises 1,700 feet, dropping just 100 feet shy of the infamous Ridge. In order to get on the lift, you have to be wearing an avalanche transceiver; you scan yourself with a manual transceiver that issues a loud “beep” before loading the chair. If you don’t get a beep, the liftie won’t allow you to load.

At the chair’s summit, you find a tiny unloading pad, zero grooming, and no cattracks or “follow the orange balls” for an easy way down. While it’s easy to pick your way through the trees and chutes directly beneath the lift, it’s also difficult to see just what you’re getting into. And if you go too far skier’s left or right, you encounter a series of cliffs, couloirs with mandatory airs, and tight, rocky lines. Though local skiers have been hitting this region for many years when it was strictly backcountry, the new lift adds a completely new dimensions to the area. It will likely take some time for even the most hardened skiers to map this place into their brains.

But with Bridger skiers finding new burly terrain, the potential to name runs, and a chair way off the collective radar, they’ve got to be asking themselves one question: What could possible be better?