Turner Mountain: Montana’s Last Undiscovered Ski Hill

Updated Jan. 10, 2025

There’s always some anxiety that comes with talking about your secret spot. Will the people you tell mention it to their friends, who will tell their friends, who will share it on social media, and in a few months the whole place is infested with influencers from California (the horror!)?

Like any subculture, the skiing community likes to keep its hidden gems… hidden. Especially in Montana. We don’t want tourist hordes descending on us like happens in so many Colorado mountain towns (RIP, Crested Butte).

Except in this case, Turner Mountain Ski Area isn’t my secret spot – I’m from Great Falls, and I’ve never lived anywhere near this hill in the far northwest of the state. I have no right to claim it. I’m just someone who loves skiing, Montana, and seeing new places, so much that I recently made a point of visiting (and writing about) all 16 Montana ski hills in one season.

So, by no means did I discover Turner Mountain, and it’s actually not that much of a secret – SKI and Powder both wrote about this “hidden gem” years ago. Yet, the gentrification apocalypse that befalls so many mountain towns never came. Unlike everything else in our social media-obsessed world, Turner appears immune to overtourism.

If those big publications can’t destroy Turner, I don’t think my recommendation will be the tipping point. And that’s good because I’m ready to shout from the rooftops how much I love Turner Mountain in Libby, Montana.

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Background on Turner Mountain Ski Area

The Painful Past of Libby, MT

To understand Turner Mountain, you first need to understand the town of Libby 23 miles away and the area Montanans call Kootenai Country. Sitting on the Idaho border up in Montana’s far northwest corner, amid the thickly-forested Cabinet and Purcell Mountains, Libby is about as isolated as it gets in western Montana. Only 3,000 people live there, and for much of Libby’s history, they all worked in the area’s lumber mills.

But then there was the town’s other industry, the heartbreaking reason the name Libby, Montana, might sound strangely familiar.

From 1920 to 1990, another of the town’s top employers was a vermiculite mine, and unfortunately, vermiculite can be contaminated with cancer-causing asbestos. Mine employees were not only exposed to asbestos at work, but went home every night covered in the dangerous fibers, unwittingly spreading it to their families and through the whole community.

After the mine went dark in the 1990, Libby was declared an EPA Superfund site and labeled one of America’s worst man-made disasters. Almost 700 residents have died and nearly 2,500 have contracted some form of lung disease, the majority of whom weren’t even miners. And this isn’t just a problem of the past – the rate of lung disease in Libby today is still about 50 times the national average.

Libby’s tragedy became a national news story, and tourists and Montanans alike came to believe it wasn’t even safe to walk the town’s streets. That’s not true now (the town’s cleanup was completed in 2018), but the fear and sensationalism isolated this remote community even further – and has certainly helped prevent its ski hill from becoming a major destination.

History of Turner Mountain Skiing

Not everything in Libby’s past is heartbreaking, though. The Kootenai Country’s remoteness left residents with little in the way of entertainment, especially during the colder winter months. But when times are tough, resourceful people make their own fun – and a minor wildfire in 1940s on the eastern slope of Turner Mountain presented them with the perfect opportunity.

In 1961, the Libby Ski Club opened what would become Turner Mountain Ski Area on New Year’s Eve, utilizing a quarter-mile-long rope tow. Just a year later, the rope was supplanted with a mile-long T-bar spanning base to summit.

And for the next 40 years, that’s all there was. If you’ve ever ridden a T-bar, you know they’re wildly uncomfortable to half sit-half stand on, and most of the time they’re only traversing one of the miniature hills back East. Now imagine a mile-long T-bar dragging you up a 2,100-foot mountain – absolutely brutal, and a testament to Libby’s diehard ski community.

It was the end of era when the T-bar was pulled down in favor of a 120-chair lift in 2001. Turner was coming into the 21st century, although the lodge, which is still pretty basic, didn’t arrive for another four years.

Alongside those barebones amenities, Turner operates with a skeleton crew – a couple of lifties, someone to serve lunch, and a clerk to run the rental shop. The rest of the work, including ski patrol, is done by volunteers.

Turner Mountain is run on a non-profit, a no-frills model allowing them to offer $45 lift tickets – the second-cheapest in Montana, only behind Bear Paw Ski Bowl near Havre. That’s mostly affordable for locals and attractive to newbie skiers and boarders who aren’t excited about dropping $100 for a day at Whitefish, the next nearest ski resort.

Turner Mountain’s Mystique

A Dying Breed

As you can see in the reviews of Turner Mountain, people who’ve been there just rave about it. And yet, despite being featured in Warren Miller’s Here, There, and Everywhere and SKI magazine deeming it “The Best Lift-Assisted Powder in North America,” Turner has never become a destination hill. Why?

For one, it’s nowhere near an airport. The closest is 2.5 hours away in Kalispell, which stays busy in the summer but serves few routes during the winter months. Amtrak’s scenic Empire Builder does run right through Libby, but not everyone shares my love for train travel.

It doesn’t help that Turner is also wedged between two of the Northwest’s best-known ski hills: Whitefish Mountain Resort and Schweitzer Mountain near Sandpoint, ID. Both amazing hills and more easily accessible, but lift tickets are $100 or more, and they do get crowded, almost every day.

And while I consider this a positive thing, Turner Mountain is lacking in the mandatory accouterments of a destination ski hill: high-speed chair lifts, ski-in ski-out condos, maybe a wine bar in the lodge. It’s classic dirtbag skiing, where everyone is there for the simple joy of bouncing through fresh powder and no one says a word if your skis are old enough to vote.

Unlike at Lost Trail Powder Mountain in the Bitterroot Valley, where a fellow skier implied that I must surely just be using my “rock skis” on that early-season day – I wasn’t. They were my everyday skis, purchased at swap only a few years beforehand.

Given how oppressively corporate, and by extension expensive, the sport has become, I’m surprised more skiers and boarders aren’t planning road trips to hills like Turner. It’s the last of a dying breed, and with climate change threatening to shutter many of America’s independent ski areas, the window for these sorts of excursions is increasingly shorter.

The Cheapest Skiing in America

I’ve done the math, and there is simply nowhere in the country that your dollar buys more vertical feet of powder than at Turner. (Okay, there’s a place in Wisconsin that’s $5 and 300 feet tall, but are we even going to call that skiing? No, we’re not.)

Turner’s lift tickets are half the price of Whitefish or Schweitzer. You can argue that those hills have more acreage and faster chairs, but I can’t say I’ve waited more than a minute or two in Turner’s lift line, which is unthinkable, even on a weekday, at Whitefish. Despite only being open Friday through Sunday, there’s usually just 100 or so skiers spread across Turner’s 22 runs.

Cheap tickets and short lines wouldn’t amount to much if the runs sucked, though. Fortunately, that’s not the case. More than half of Turner’s are steep, mogul-laden black diamonds. In fact, the mountain’s main downfall is that it doesn’t have much for beginners, with just one narrow, zig-zagging green from the summit to the lodge. All the more reason to practice those skills drills and move up to the blues.

A Ski Resort All to Yourself

Turner is only open to the public Friday through Sunday, but if you can cobble together enough friends (or a pile of money and no friends), the mountain is available for private rentals. The most recent price I’ve seen for this is $3,750 for a day, equivalent to about 85 lift tickets.

It’s not exactly cheap, but for anyone looking to treat their soon-to-be-married friend, fresh tracks in knee-deep powder is a whole lot more memorable than a drunken bash in Vegas.

Accommodations Near Turner Mountain Ski Area

Libby is a tiny town with only a handful of hotels and Airbnbs, but since Turner Mountain isn’t widely-known (yet), you shouldn’t have much trouble getting a booking during ski season.

These are our recommendations for where to stay near Turner Mountain:

Venture Inn: A super cozy spot on Libby’s west end, this is one of the larger hotels in town, with a full-service restaurant, an indoor swimming pool, and a hot tub for soaking sore muscles after a day on the slopes.

Evergreen Motel: This recently renovated property in downtown Libby has a cabin-chic vibe with beautiful hardwood floors and rustic log bed frames. It’s also within walking distance of just about everything in town – the train station, the brewery, a couple coffee shops, and most of the restaurants.

Treasure Mountain Escape: Less than ten minutes outside Libby, this cozy vacation rental feels like a secluded getaway. You’ll be able to make use of the full kitchen, enjoy the fireplace, take in the mountain views, and – the best part – soak in the hot tub under the stars.

Troy Cabins: Twenty minutes down the highway in the town of Troy, MT, this cluster of cabins must be one of the most unique accommodations in NW Montana. The tiny house setups overlooking the Kootenai River have everything you need for a memorable Montana ski vacation – fully-stocked kitchens, outdoor fire pits, a sauna, and a yurt for socializing with your fellow ski bums.

We stayed at the Bunkhouse Cabin in Troy, and it’s still one of our favorite Airbnbs to date!

Apres-Ski at Turner Mountain

Everyone wants a place to relax, have a drink, and kick off those foot prisons we call ski boots. Turner Mountain doesn’t have much of a lodge, though, to say nothing of the lack of hot tubs, wine tastings, or in-room massages.

Turner’s lodge is a simple place designed to deliver enough calories and hydration to keep you ripping through powder until the lift shuts down at 4:00. If a greasy burger and fries isn’t your style, you’ll need to pack your own bougie lunch.

So when the lift stops spinning, pack up your gear and drive the 40 minutes back to Libby for your night out. Cabinet Mountain Brewing, billing itself as “Libby’s Living Room,” is the perfect place to unwind after a day on the slopes. As far as I know, it’s also the only female-owned brewery in Montana.

Offering a diverse menu with everything from street tacos to wood-fired pizzas, with plenty of vegetarian options, Cabinet Mountain is also one of the best places to eat in Libby.

For something more upscale, hit up Blackboard Bistro on the opposite end of Mineral Ave. They’re known for farm-to-table Mediterranean dishes and an excellent wine selection. Reservations are required here, so you should at least hit the showers beforehand, though they probably won’t throw you out for showing up in a beanie and boots.

Things to Do Near Turner Mountain Ski Area

Turner Mountain aside, the Libby area is pretty quiet during the winter months. Attractions like the Libby Heritage Museum and the Libby Dam visitors center shut down after the summer tourist season, and the remainder of possible activities are all outdoors and involve a fair bit of snow. That being said, there are a few things to do in the area before or after your day of skiing Turner Mountain.

South Flower Creek Cross-Country Ski Area: What better way to recover from skiing than with more skiing? If Turner’s legendary fall-line skiing hasn’t trashed your knees, grab your Nordic gear and head a few miles south of Libby to South Flower Creek Cross-Country Ski Area. With nine miles of trail and nearly 500 feet of vertical there’s something for everyone – flat groomers, the ominously named “Suicide” route, and everything in between.

Kootenai Falls and Swinging Bridge: Arguably the most beautiful waterfall in the Treasure State, Kootenai Falls is infamous for its inclusion in the Meryl Streep-Kevin Bacon ‘90s thriller The River Wild.

The Kootenai River’s surging rapids and iridescent green waters are ideal for ramping up the action, but winter offers a chance to see the river at its most serene. Flanked by snow-covered cliffs, an eerie rope bridge looming over the icy waters, and nary a tourist for miles, the falls are a spectacular sight to see after a big day of skiing.

Living the Ski Bum Dream in Northwest Montana

If you only care about big mountain stats, Colorado will always win out. They’ve got the acreage, the vertical, and the mind-blowing expert terrain. But what many of those mountains, and even Big Sky Resort in Montana, lack is heart. The tickets are expensive, the accommodations feel cookie-cutter, and the culture is more New York hedge fund than small-town ski bum.

Turner offers what a dwindling number of ski areas can still claim: community. A space where sheer fun triumphs over status signaling and the cost of entry is low enough that nearly everyone is welcome. I don’t expect to win over many converts, but maybe just a few of you will recognize the importance of this kind of hill and plan your next ski trip to Turner Mountain.

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