Celebrating 50 years

by chelsi moy
photos by linda thompson and michael gallacher

Slim Gore-Tex snow pants eventually replaced one-piece neon snowsuits, jeans and wool pants with suspenders.

Ski ticket prices spiked as skiers flocked to the slopes. Skis got fatter and shorter, snowboards entered the scene and boots reverted from rear entry to buckling in the front.

Despite the many changes in the ski business over the past half century, much is still the same at Missoula’s backyard ski area.

Bob Johnson, left, and Dave Flaccus were the main promoters behind Snow Park and later Snowbowl in the 1950s and 1960s. Photograph courtesy of Pictorial Histories Publishing Co.

Montana Snowbowl, loved for its proximity to town and steep, expert terrain, celebrates its 50th birthday this winter.

It's been called Montana Snowbowl, Missoula Snow Bowl or simply the Bowl, but no matter what locals call it, the ski area has remained just that – local. For five decades it's been operated by local residents for local residents. There are no high-rise condominiums or high-speed quad chairlifts. Some of the steepest, hair-raising runs have names only the faithful know.

Skiers know exactly what to expect when they arrive at Snowbowl, and whether that's good or bad, they keep coming back.

“Snowbowl is very integrated into the community,'' said Stan Cohen, who owned the Snowbowl ski shop 48 years ago and later wrote a book about downhill skiing in Montana. “It's intertwined with its psyche.”

This golden anniversary is a benchmark some involved in the ski area’s earliest days never expected to reach.

Snowbowl teetered on the edge of bankruptcy at least once, and drought years have brought the ski area's fate into question on more than one occasion. Cohen recalls skiers during the first weekend in January having to ride down the Grizzly chairlift to the base of the mountain because of a lack of snow.

“A couple of times, it was rough, man,” Cohen said. “We never knew if it was going to open until the last minute.”

There's little doubt anymore whether Snowbowl will open, but cash flow still remains a challenge.

“There're all kinds of things to spend money on,” said Brad Morris, who has owned Snowbowl with his wife Ronnie for the last 27 years. “You can talk to anybody up there. They'll have a list of things that need to be done.”

Snowmaking equipment and the popularity of the “Last Run Inn” were likely beyond the imagination of the area’s beginnings 50 years ago.

One thing that Snowbowl has recently crossed off its list, however, is something that has not only needed attention, but was part of what defined the ski area over the last half century – the road. There are many risks associated with downhill skiing, but anyone who’s driven to Snowbowl knows that sometimes just getting there is the day’s major triumph.

“I don't have that much grey hair but I should have more because of driving it,”' said Cohen, who drove the road for nine years. “You would need a Sherman tank to get up and down there.”

The improvements to Snowbowl road have been one of the biggest challenges in terms of time and money that the ski area has faced in the last quarter century, Morris said.

When businessmen and skiers Dave Flaccus and Bob Johnson decided to move Snow Park, a poma-lift ski area on TV Mountain, just east to Big Sky Mountain's steeper terrain in 1961, the primary owners called on Pinkie McDonald. A skier and logger for the Anaconda Copper Mining Co., McDonald cut many of the original runs, built the Snowbowl road and assisted in installing the first chairlift.

“He was always proud of the fact that he built the road in 16 days,'' said his son, Pat McDonald of Missoula. “At first there were various opinions on the quality of the road. You could get a logging truck out of there so he thought it was adequate, but it wasn't adequate for normal traffic.”

That was just a portion of the work necessary  in 1961 to get Snowbowl’s slopes open.

Snow Park's Poma lift was moved to Sunrise Bowl – where the T-bar is today – and investors installed a mile-long, 101-seat chairlift to serve 546 passengers an hour.

Two rope tows were installed above the Grizzly chairlift so skiers could access the High Park now served by the LaVelle chair.

“It was a tremendous project,'' said Pat McDonald, who was working as a banker at the time.

McDonald's boss allowed him a month off of work from the bank to help his father with the logging operation and chair installation at Snowbowl. Installing the
2,000-vertical-foot chairlift required hooking cement trucks to Cat machines and pulling them up the mountain. A boss allowing an employee to take a month off work is unlikely today, McDonald said, but “that was the kind of spirit that existed around Missoula towards Snowbowl.”

In 1963, Cohen, an out-of-work graduate student living in a fraternity house agreed to run Snowbowl's ski shop despite the fact that he couldn't ski. There weren't many duties Cohen didn't perform during his years working at Snowbowl.

He ran the ski school for a time and owned the ski shop, and even constructed the building that housed the shop until it burned to the ground in 1983. 

“It was one of the most interesting times of my life,” he said.

In the 1960s, before there was grooming equipment, Cohen arrived at the mountain at 7 a.m. and used a snowmobile to pack down the bunny slope and the bottom of Sunrise Bowl as best he could. Otherwise, it was up to skiers to maneuver the powdery white slopes.

“If you could ski Snowbowl, you could ski anywhere,'' he said.

In 1963, Snowbowl boasted of the largest vertical drop in the Northwest. And until Big Sky Resort installed its tram to the top of Lone Peak, Snowbowl had the largest vertical drop of any ski area in Montana. That drop of 2,600 vertical feet is part of what distinguishes the Bowl, Morris said.

“In the days when there was no grooming, it was pretty challenging,” he said.

V.I. “Pinky” McDonald, one of the founders of the ski area, stands by a slash pile during the installation of the chairlift. Photograph courtesy of Pictorial Histories Publishing Co.

In 1967, that challenge drew the U.S. Senior National Alpine Championships to Snowbowl. The event would in part dictate the makeup of the 1968 Olympic ski team, and Snowbowl stepped up with improvements that included a T-bar, additional runs in the bowls and construction of the bierstube, which was connected to the lodge by a large deck.

Top American and international racers showed up, and Gov. Tim Babcock presented awards to the winners.

The surprise was the lack of advertisers, who Snowbowl owners thought would turn the event into a solid profit-maker.

“They thought they were going to make a bunch of money and that never happened,”' Morris said. “Here, they spent all this money and now they didn't have a way to repay what they owed.”

In the wake of the financial disaster, Snowbowl deteriorated. Without money for needed improvements, facilities drifted into disrepair, and the ski shop and bierstube burned down. Even the T-bar derailed.

That's when six local physicians led by Morris stepped up to buy the ski area in 1984.

“We thought we could keep it going,” he said.

The first year was a success, with skier visits doubling to 40,000. The second year, skier visits slid back to 20,000. Meanwhile, the new owners were trying to pay off debt accrued by installing the upper LaVelle Chairlift. After five years, when the chairlift was paid off, five of the doctors walked. But Brad and Ronnie Morris stuck it out.

As money became available, the couple invested in new equipment, built a hotel and ski shop, expanded the bar and worked on the road.

“I believed I could make it go,”' he said. “You learn a little each year.”

On any given day of the week, the Snowbowl bar is hopping. Skiers devour wood-fired pizza and re-energize with one of Snowbowl's famous Bloody Mary's.
Snowbowl has reached its capacity, recording an average of 63,000 skier visits each season. The original Grizzly chairlift installed in 1963 was upgraded and reinstalled in 1994, which more than doubled its hourly skier capacity.

In order to accommodate a future with more skiers, Snowbowl needs more terrain, particularly runs that cater to beginner and intermediate skiers. So, on this golden anniversary, Morris is looking back to Snowbowl’s roots for inspiration, hoping one day soon to redevelop the the area to the west formerly known as Snow Park  – the place where it all began.

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Ski Brew

by chelsi moy

Bayern Brewery is celebrating 50 years of Montana Snowbowl with another Groomer, the microbrew honoring the local ski area’s golden anniversary.

The dark winter Marzen is Bayern’s first-ever organic beer. The unfiltered Bavarian microbrew will taste mild in hops and have a mild to strong full-body taste with a deep dark color. Bayern is only serving the microbrew on tap at various local bars and restaraunts, including, of course, Snowbowl’s Last Run Inn.

The alcohol content is 5.3 percent, said Bayern Brewery owner Jurgen Knoller, which is not “so intoxicating that people can’t make it off the mountain.”

Ronnie Morris, who co-owns Montana Snowbowl with her husband Brad, came up with the name Groomer. That way, on powder days, Morris can direct customers in search of packed snow inside.

“You can always find a groomer at the bar,” she said.

Chelsi Moy is a reporter at the Missoulian and the blogger who presides over MontanaSnowSports.com. She can be reached at (406) 523-5260 or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it