Whitefish Mountain Resort

My boys ski, but I don’t. They are loving the slopes. I’m hanging at the lodge at the top of the mountain. $ 18 gets you a foot passenger ticket up the lift. The lodge on top is full-​service, with a bustling bar with local brews on tap. Heart-​stopping views from up top! The bar/​cafeteria area upstairs is crowded and a bit noisy. If you want quiet, go to the lower floor. Still great views, you can take your drink & food down there, and you might be the only ones down there. We shared some curly fries and they were surprisingly good, crispy and served with good ranch dressing for dipping. This is the nicest ski lodge to hang out in!

Where to start. This place is amazing. I rented a snoWboard and helmet. The price is just right! The lift ticket however for a half day is a little spendy.
The runs are amazing. The staff seemed amazing. The beer is cold, the people are friendly and the lift waits are short! I’ll definitely be coming back

I highly recommend the Ski Classes and the ski instructor Lori (from Ohio.) I haven’t skied since I was a little kid– a super beginner. She was super experienced, super patient, super informative, super cheer leader even when I felt like I wasn’t performing well. I took 3 classes with her back to back. Without her wisdom, guidance, advice, and most importantly, her enthusiasm, I would have quit after the first 20 minutes. I cannot recommend her enough!

Great place to ski, snowboard, and relax. They have a bunch of runs and slopes open. The staff is super nice and helpful! The lodges have really good food and a lot of beer and drinks to choose from. The hot apple cider is really good and soothing. Awesome place to go!

After hiking the Danny On Trail and starving, the Base Lodge Café was very disappointing. The buffalo burger, bacon, onions, and bun were all burnt (black) and not enjoyable. The onion rings were good and my boyfriend said the milkshake was good. But for a burger that’s $ 13 (not including shake and onion rings) I would expect much better.

We just completed the adventure park ropes courses… It was a lot of fun. The courses are challenging especially the black diamond! I would recommend the park. We have skied here before too and it was equally great! Thumbs up.

My girlfriend’s father lives in Kalispell, so they come every winter for a week of skiing. They love it. It’s out of the way so not often packed, but the mountain and skiing are top of the line. This is my first trip in the first week of March. It’s been the coldest it’s ever been in March, lifts closed, NOT comfortable. As it warmed slightly, it started snowing a lot. It’s been pretty bad weather, but the slopes are still really fun and great. My girlfriend’s family are all hardcore skiers and she told me it was a solid Unilocal 5. I don’t know skiing that well, but she said it’s comparable to any world class slope, just a bit removed. And unlike Colorado, not nearly as sunny. Also the snow is pretty light it seems — good powder, not much ice or heavy snow

So so so amazing! Very friendly staff and so helpful. The photographers are great as well, we got some great photos of our trip. And of course the snow was absolutely amazing!!! Thanks whitefish for a great weekend! Only thing I suggest is to pack a lunch if you don’t like burgers, chili, or pizza. The food was definitely not the greatest, I would suggest they get a burrito shack or something.

Have skied all over the world and Whitefish is the best kept secret… just tough enough to get to… but when you get here you are rewarded with world class skiing, hotels (The Lodge at Whitefish Lake), inexpensive lift tickets, great restaurants, rowdy pubs, and friendly people. This place may not be chi-​chi like Beaver Creek, Vail, or Aspen; but I’ll take exceptional runs and low key folks any day of the week.

What an awesome mountain. Lots of groomed trails you think you are here alone. The anti-​piste on a pow day looks amazing. Breath taking views from the summit. Awesome locals!!!

My friend and I spent our last day in Montana at the Whitefish Mountain Resort in late August 2013 and had a great time. The prices were not bad for what you get. Plus, you can’t beat the views from the gondola going to the top of the mountain. We tried the alpine slide while we were there and it was fun. As adults we were fine doing it just once. But, they do offer ticket packages where you can ride the slide a couple of times if you like.
We also really enjoyed taking the gondola to the top of the mountain and were very happy we bought the round-​trip tickets. The hike back down is over 4 miles long and we were done hiking after exploring Glacier all week. The view, as I mentioned, is fantastic from the top. We also enjoyed exploring the nature center, talking with the friendly and knowledgeable ranger there, and looking out of the expansive windows with their binoculars. Afterward, we enjoyed a hot chocolate from the bar and sat at one of the picnic tables on their deck outside. Then we hiked a few feet down the mountain and picked huckleberries.
All in all it was a great way to end our time in Northern Montana. I would definitely go back and this time also try the zip line and the walk in the treetops. We didn’t have nearly enough time to do it all. But we would definitely go back.

We checked out the Walk in the Treetops Friday morning and had a great experience! Our guides were friendly, knowledgeable and made us feel comfortable on our journey. The walk itself was really cool and afforded beautiful views of the Flathead Valley. This is a must do when visiting the area!

Go Do the Zip Line the Big Mountain !!!
Man, they have got this going on… So organized and so much fun!
Friendly, helpful, and caring staff — you feel like you just made some best friends! They remember everyone’s names, hometowns, family members, and on and on…
There are 7 awesome zip lines now, and each is worth the small hikes to get there. Water stations are also a nice addition, as well as the photographers that take great shots (for sale after the zips) of the adventure… I sure wasn’t gonna risk dropping my phone/​camera flying thru the air. Worth the trip up the mountain.

My family of 5 just stayed at the Sherpa in Whitefish for a few days with a goal of visiting Glacier. The accomodations were very nice and there was plenty of room for us all. I don’t know that it was worth the price but it was very nice. (We loved being close to the pool.) We loved going down the alpine slide and the Zipline the staff was very helpful. Everything on this mountain was pricey (especially for a slow summer day– and I bring tip cash with you). Abbey and Jenny were awesome zipline guides!

This review is mixed and is more relevant to those traveling to the resort via Amtrak.
– On mountain staff: 5 stars –
The staff here is amazing. Super friendly and helpful. My 9 yr old daughter kept saying throughout the day «everyone is so friendly here». I had a lift operator come out of nowhere and offer to take a photo of me with my camera. The ski instructors are great with children and after her first two hour lesson she was a much more confident skier and exchanging high fives with her instructor.
– Wait times: 5 stars –
We stayed at Whitefish over a holiday weekend, MLK day, and they were also holding a big race. It was their busiest weekend of the year and the longest line was only 10 minutes. Most of the lifts are a minute or less, and some with no lines.
You can easily find runs that you will have almost to yourself. The people at Whitefish are mostly locals or Canadian (no Europeans like at Whistler) and so it’s a very low key atmosphere and people are courteous to each other.
– Ski in Ski out: 3 stars –
The resort advertises ski in ski out access from their hotels and rental properties. The ski out is super easy for both snow boarders and skiers. However skiing back in is a challenge, especially with children. In order to ski back in you have to traverse the lifts all the way to skiers right, and then take a fairly tough blue run to a long, fairly flat cat track. There are no signs to tell you where you are going and we made a couple mistakes that required hiking back to the correct turn.
For you last run if the day it’s brutal with children. Adults that can ski blues well and have a good sense of direction will fair better. This could be easily improved with some more signage and curing a green run higher up the mountain.
– Other Activities: 2 stars –
We were attracted to Whitefish because they advertised activities like dogsledding and sleigh rides. However, these activities are far from the resort and they are not supported with a regular shuttle service. Dog sledding is 30 miles away and unless you have a large group and are going on a Tuesday, the you will need to pay for a cab — $ 50 each way. Slight riding is only available to groups if 6 or more, so a family of 4 or a couple is out if luck.
It’s ridiculous — Whitefish needs to improve their shuttle service if they are going to market traveling by train.
– Snow: 3 stars –
As of The third week in January, coverage isn’t great. There are bald spots all over the lower mountain. It is nothing like Cascades in Washington where coverage is deep by January. However, since it is very cold in Montana, the quality if the snow is great and hold up well. We had no new snow our entire stay but it held up well to grooming and stayed fluffy (although packed down) off trail.

Zip-​Tours — 5 stars for the tour guides, 3 stars for the price/​value.
Mountain (from a snowboarders point of view) — 5 stars for the on-​hill accommodations & staff, 3 stars for the hill in terms of variety of terrain and variety of difficulty levels
It’s a «big» mountain, but I don’t like how everything kind of funnels into the same areas… it makes it a little crowded, and inconvenient to repeat runs that you liked lots. The on-​hill accommodations are amazing, renovated and decently priced.
The zip tours were fun because the tour guides were fun. They were, however, a little over-​priced for the «experience» itself, but the booking staff was amazing, the tour guides were amazing, and it was worth trying.

We did the zip line and new aerial course this past weekend. All I can say is it is great family time. I felt safe and the staff is very courteous. Bring a pocket full of money as it is expensive to do all you will want to. The new aerial course is fun and both my 20 year old as well as 10 year old were challenged.
Very much recommend.

Whitefish is a pretty decent mountain for beginner to advanced skiers. It’s very family-​friendly, with a good variety of runs easily accessible from the main lift. It’s also a fairly big mountain, with four skiable peaks and more than eight lifts and t-​bars.
During my visit, the weather was fairly warm and wet, but there was still some pretty great powder near the summit. Some friendly locals showed me some great runs. One required what I’d describe as a «medium length» hike, but the payoff was a spectacular stash of virgin powder on some great terrain. Thanks, guys!
The resort itself is beautiful. I was very impressed with the size, quality, and cleanliness of the room I stayed in. That said, the bed was hard enough that it did give me some trouble sleeping, and for how many buildings there are in the «village,» there’s surprisingly little selection in terms of food.
My review has been very positive so far, so you might wonder why I’ve only given Whitefish ³⁄₅ stars. Well, there are a few downsides. First, although the mountain has a lot of skiable area, the vertical drop is only 2353 feet (717 meters.) Compared to nearby mountains like Revelstoke, that’s not great, and it’s very evident in the runs.
While there is lots of good terrain to be found, the best spots are difficult to get to, and because there’s so little vertical, the challenging terrain will only last you a couple minutes if you know what you’re doing. After that, you’re stuck on long, slow, boring cat tracks to get back to the lift. I really enjoyed Hellroaring Basin and the East Rim Face, but the former comes out at the bottom of a rickety old chair that takes forever to get back up the mountain, and the latter can be bombed down in a matter of seconds when the snow is good, only to leave you with a ten-​minute slog across a mostly-​flat green run.
My other complaint is that the resort staff don’t seem to be super diligent about opening lifts on time and keeping guests informed about closures. On the first day of my visit, the opening of the main chair was delayed by half an hour because rime from the previous night had to be cleaned off the seats. I find that a little perplexing given that the chair normally opens at 9:30, which is already a half-​hour later than every other resort I’ve ever been to. Additionally, they didn’t do a great job of communicating about the situation to the people waiting in line. To be fair, ice-​covered chairs are a safety issue and sometimes the weather causes unexpected surprises, so I’d readily forgive the staff for being a half hour late to open the chair one day.
What I won’t forgive, though, is that on the second day the Bigfoot T-​Bar was closed for no apparent reason, with no indication of its closure on any of the signs I looked at. I know what you’re thinking: why would you want to ride a t-​bar anyway? From what I understand (and from what I’ve seen of the area), the Bigfoot services some pretty respectable powder runs. I was annoyed that I rode down to it twice only to find it closed.
To finish this «compliment sandwich» and summarize, I did enjoy my time at Whitefish, and it is a good resort. Families will love it here, and if you’re coming from southern Montana there’s probably nothing better around. However, if you’re an expert skier or snowboarder – you eat black diamonds for breakfast and only start to work up a sweat when you’re on a gnarly double-​black – then you may find yourself growing bored of the mountain before too long. If you’re coming in from the Calgary area, there are a several better mountains within the same distance (for example, Kicking Horse and Revelstoke).
Everyone should give Whitefish a try, but you might not want to book a week-​long ski trip here if you’re looking for seriously challenging terrain.

I love this place… HUGE…lots of great runs… relatively inexpensive overall… great locals… unbelievably nice people on the Mountain !
THE only negative… it can be foggy !
This aint Aspen… there are no massage therapists doing lift line massages… of course. there really are no lift lines !
The town… and other close by towns are very nice with reasonably priced booze… food…entertainment.
This and the variety of resorts around SLT are THEEE best places to ski in the USA !

Just returned from a trip to Whitefish Mountain, and couldn’t have had a better trip.
It’s off the beaten path, for sure, but if you don’t mind flying into a smaller airport (Glacier National) it’s hard to find another mountain out west that’s as close to an airport as Whitefish. They get a solid base, lots of annual snowfall totals, and low crowds …
Wait a minute … come to think of it, don’t go to Whitefish. It’s no good. :)
*Updated Jan 2012* — decided on another trip to Whitefish this January and still in love with this mountain. Virtually limitless terrain, for all levels of skiers, is available, and with the low attendance you can find fresh powder lines just about anywhere. This is a gem — if you want a true ski resort experience this isn’t going to be your thing (although they do have a very nice lodge), but if you want powder runs then you have to check out The Big Mountain.