A Bridger Canyon nonprofit where both beginner skiers and Olympic athletes recreate is planning for new developments with hopes to break ground in 2020.
Crosscut Mountain Sports Center, which opens Saturday for its winter season, has released a $20 million, three-phase development plan with new features coming as early as this summer. The first step will be to add more parking, a roller ski loop and a new biathlon range. The second will add a day use lodge in 2022 designed to host families and professional athletes alike.
The land, two parcels formerly known as Bohart Ranch and Crosscut Ranch, has been used for outdoor recreation since the 1980s. Crosscut Mountain Sports Center bought the 533 acres in 2017 and has access to U.S. Forest Service land. It’s 17 miles north of Bozeman and adjacent to Bridger Bowl Ski Area.
Crosscut offers groomed cross-country skiing, fat biking and snowshoeing in the winter and mountain biking and other trail use in the summer. It’s also the training site for the U.S. Paralympic Nordic ski team, Crosscut Biathlon and the Bobcat Nordic ski team. NCAA ski championships will be held at Crosscut in March.
Crosscut partners with Eagle Mount, Big Sky Youth Empowerment, Bozeman Youth Cycling and Bridger Ski Foundation for a variety of programs that get people on the trails. These offerings and partnerships have increased visitation to the center — along with Bozeman’s growing population.
As soon as the money for phase one is raised, Crosscut will begin a $10 million campaign for phase two. Atkins said the nonprofit has been talking with its partners, architects and engineers to design the lodge. One-third of the lodge will be for public use with a restaurant and ski shop, and the other portion will be used by professional athletes and partners like Eagle Mount as a home base.
Crosscut has been working with Kath Williams and Associates to make the lodge a living building — the highest standard for sustainability in construction. That means the lodge will be carbon neutral and solar-powered and have a vegetated roof.
(Exerted from Bozeman Daily Chronicle, front page, 12/14/2019
