Bridger Bowl: The Ridge and the Local Mountain

Sixteen miles northeast of Bozeman, Bridger Bowl has served as the local ski hill since it opened in nineteen fifty-five as a nonprofit community ski area. Named for the mountain range honoring trapper and guide Jim Bridger, who traversed this country in the eighteen twenties and thirties, Bridger Bowl operates without a profit motive, with any surplus going back into the mountain. The area is particularly known for The Ridge, a steep upper terrain accessible by hiking that provides some of the most challenging in-bounds skiing in the northern Rockies. Bozeman residents have long regarded Bridger Bowl as a point of local pride, a counterweight to the destination resort culture that Big Sky represents.