Out with a splash: Big Sky celebrates end of winter season with Pond Skim

BIG SKY — Anticipation mounted in the Big Sky Bowl as hundreds of skiers and snowboarders waited for the first Pond Skim contestant to drop in.

As music bumped from the DJ tent, 100 contestants lined up downhill from the Powder Seeker lift, eager to celebrate the end of the winter season and try their hand at gliding over the frigid water.

“This year was a little less busy, but the vibes are up,” said Isis Antio, a two-time Big Sky Pond Skim participant.

Antio was the 15th competitor to descend. Dressed in a retro pink and orange windbreaker, jorts, and knee-high striped socks, Antio was one of the first participants to jump into the pond.

“They lied,” Antio said. “The jump was not as mellow as they said.”

Twelve runs later, Nick Evans came hurling down the Pond Skim run, the fringe of his green plastic skirt trailing behind him.

“I’m dressed as a hula girl,” Evans said, gesturing to his inflatable costume, complete with a seashell bikini top. He joked that he opted to leave it deflated for his run, worried about the drag the extra surface area could create.

Wind resistance aside, Evans did not make it across, sinking about halfway through the roughly 100-foot pond.

“You know, it wasn’t ideal, you want to make it across, but that’s the beauty of it. You hit the water, have fun, and it’s not too cold,” he said. “I would 100% sign up next year. Now I know the deal, and I have a strategy. I leaned too far back and got stuck in the back seat.”

While this was Evans’ first time participating in a Pond Skim, he said he had attended as a spectator, and the experience inspired him to register.

“The vibes are 100%. I had to make sure, (I) was in the queue right as it opened,” Evans said. “(I) was on the waitlist for an hour before I was able to get the pass.”

Registration for the Pond Skim opened March 16 and filled almost instantly. Participants paid a $35 fee, and a lift ticket or a valid pass was necessary to access the event.

On any other day, a man in a hula costume would have stood out on the mountain, but Pond Skim left the slopes speckled with disco cowgirls, sumo wrestlers, and Canadian tuxedo-donning shredders.

The Pond Skim marked the end of the regular season at Big Sky. The resort will remain open for two more weekends, with the official closing day set for Sunday, April 26.

“Despite lower-than-average snowfall and record-high temperatures across the West, Big Sky Resort saw strong skier visits,” Megan Munley, Big Sky’s public relations manager, wrote in an email to The Chronicle.

To accommodate a 30% deficit in average annual snowfall, Big Sky relied heavily on its snowmaking operations to keep the mountain operating smoothly.

Munley said 2025–26 marked the resort’s longest snowmaking season in history. While the resort usually aims to complete snowmaking in mid-December, she said this season they were making snow well into January and February.

Big Sky integrates two systems, SnowStat and iSno, into its snowmaking operations.

iSno is a management program that monitors the snowmaking system in real time. It tracks snow-gun performance, energy and water usage, and total snow production across the mountain.

SnowStat is a monitoring program that implements forward-looking LiDAR to track and report snow depth, visibility across terrain, and grooming system performance in real time. Terrain mapping is completed in the summer by flying a drone or fixed-wing aircraft over the mountain.

Using data from both systems, Munley said the resort avoids over- or under-producing snow. Additionally, the integrated systems ensure snow is distributed evenly across terrain, equipment issues are identified and addressed efficiently, and skiing conditions can be extended.

Despite reduced natural snowfall, Big Sky saw 94% of its average snow water equivalent this season. Some of the precipitation fell as rain at lower elevations, and as “significantly denser snow than usual” on the mid and upper mountain.

High temperatures were the largest hurdle of the season, Munley said. At Lobo, Big Sky’s mid-mountain weather station, the season ranked as the warmest since 2011–12.

“It’s not all bad news,” Munley wrote. “Even this season, temperatures in November–February were still cold enough to provide dry snow surfaces and solid coverage and skiing conditions on most aspects.”

As the Pond Skim crowd thinned and skiers and snowboarders made their way down, some for their final runs of the season, hoots and hollers mingled with the swish of skis and boards slicing through the slushy snow.

“(Pond Skim) brings people together for something silly and fun. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about: Having fun and not taking life too seriously,” Evans said.