Wander the West

Brundage Ski Area

	A small mountain with Family Feel

February 2007

The last stop on my 2007 ski tour was Brundage Ski area located just outside McCall Idaho. My ski buddies had abandoned me back in Kalispell Montana and I had made nearly a nonstop drive to pick up a few turns at this ski area that bragged about the best powder in Idaho. As my luck would have it they also had not seen any new snow in about 6 days and based on the perfectly blue skis my hopes of any overnight dumps were low.

Brundage offers 1,800 vertical feet over 1,340 acres and is mostly below tree level. However, as seems to be so common in Idaho, there is a fair amount of glade skiing near the top. There are 5 total chair lifts with around 38 runs, so this is not a ‘big’ mountain by anyone’s definition (unless you are from Kentucky). None-the-less this is a very appealing mountain from a local standpoint and as I cruised around discovered a very family oriented feel. Kids were involved in lessons and everyone seemed to be able to find terrain to their liking.

I took only 4 runs (I’m sorry to say). I simply had had enough groomers in the sun for one week and besides my dogs back home were starting feel like orphans (not to mention my wife’s feelings). I made the drive back to Bend in about 51/2 hours. Not a bad wrap to a great trip.

- Eric Davis