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Big Sky Upgrading Six Shooter Lift to Bubble Eight-Pack for 2024-25 Season (Vol. 15)

Welcome to the latest PeakRankings newsletter! In this series, we round up the best news and deals from the ski industry.

📹 Last Week’s Videos:

• Tahoe Ski Resorts Ranked for Experts: Forgettable to Truly Extreme

• Mountain Review: Whistler Blackcomb, Canada

• Most DANGEROUS Ski Resorts in North America

One of the most egregious chokepoints at Montana’s largest ski resort is finally on track to be addressed.

The Scoop 👓

Big Sky has had an ambitious master plan for years, but an unexpected new initiative just made its way onto the roster: an eight-pack bubble replacement for the Six Shooter 6 lift.

In addition to adding heated seats and blue bubbles, the new eight-pack is expected to run at a 30% faster speed than the outgoing lift, reducing the ride time to less than six minutes. In addition, the new lift, which does not yet for an official name (we imagine it won’t retain the “Six Shooter” moniker given the upgraded capacity), will offer a greater than 50% capacity increase from the current setup. The new lift is expected to debut for the 2024-25 season—and when it does, it will be the fifth bubble chairlift at Big Sky, and the longest eight-pack chairlift in the world.

The full details of this upgrade can be found here, and will precede a new gondola out from the main Mountain Village base lodge and upgraded facilities for 2025-26.

Big Sky's trail map, with the Six Shooter lift line highlighted in red.

What this means for you🎿

We’ve been saying for years that Big Sky’s Madison base lift setup has been in dire need of a capacity solution, and we’re glad to see one finally coming in the near future.

The current Six Shooter 6 is a massive chokepoint, with the lift providing the only way out from the Madison base area to other resort zones. While it’s a six-pack, the Six Shooter’s wide chair spacing means it doesn’t offer the typical capacity benefits of such a lift—and with guests needing to take Six Shooter to exit other terrain pods such as Lone Tree and Derringer, it sees more traffic than just the terrain pod it directly serves. Finally, this lift has been prone to mechanical issues in recent years, which has resulted in occasional stoppages and compounded the lack of redundancies in this area even more than the setup already otherwise would have.

But this somewhat-of-a-surprise announcement should bring much needed relief in the above respects. While an eight-place replacement for a six-pack normally wouldn’t bring that much extra capacity, the current lift’s sub-optimal chair spacing situation will increase throughput by over 50%. And while the old lift could get cold and windy, the  bubbles and heated seats on the new eight pack should make things much more comfortable.

This figure shows a rendering of the Six Shooter lift replacement.

Source: Big Sky

The one downside to Big Sky’s plans here is that the Six Shooter replacement will remain the only way to get out of the Madison base and nearby trail pods. Given how much of a bottleneck this area is, we believe another lift redundancy may be needed to fully solve the chokepoint issue. But we’ll wait to see how the new bubble eight-pack shakes out before reserving final judgment, and we’re looking forward to riding it when it opens next winter.

For more on Big Sky, check out our full mountain reviews (both with and without tram access) and our Rockies resort rankings. Additionally, check out our Big Sky video review below.

Considering a trip to Big Sky? Let us make the trip decisions for you ✈️

Thinking of visiting Big Sky—and not sure how these investments will impact your trip? Try out PeakRankings Trips, our new trip-planning service. We can plan every aspect of your trip, whether it be to Big Sky, Jackson Hole, or over 90 destination ski resorts across North America!

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