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Giving Back

Giving Back to a Local Legend

Gary Cabell has been skiing on Big Mountain since 1976. When his health started to fail and he lost running water on his property, the community jumped in to help

By Maggie Dresser
Gary Cabell, a retired Big Mountain ski patroller, at his home in Whitefish on Dec. 16, 2022. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

A few decades ago, before Ed and Mully’s existed on Big Mountain and long before it was rebranded as Whitefish Mountain Resort, Lauren Walker remembers seeing Gary Cabell everywhere.

Walker often ran into him at Moose’s Saloon where he worked, which once had a location at the ski area, and she would ride the chairlift with him on Big Mountain. As one of few Black people in the Flathead Valley in the 1980s and 1990s, she said Cabell stood out.

“He skied all of the time and I just knew him from around town and he always had such a lovely presence and energy, and he was just kind,” Walker said. “He was one of those people you were always happy to see.”

Walker’s husband was friends was Cabell, who was also known as Cabelli, for years and when they moved in across the street from Cabell almost a decade ago, they started to see him more regularly – bringing him cupcakes on his birthday and stopping by around the holidays.

A few days before Thanksgiving this year, they visited Cabell to say hello and to see how he was doing. He gave them an honest answer – he was not OK.

Cabell, who is 74, had to quit his job as a night auditor at a local hotel because of health problems stemming from prostate cancer. He uses ski poles to walk around his property, which sits halfway between Whitefish and Columbia Falls, and he lost access to running water. Cabell had historically shared a well with his neighbor, until he recently moved away.

With Cabell’s blessing, Walker launched a GoFundMe account to help secure funds for a new well and to build a handicap accessible porch, along with paying for physical therapy to rehabilitate his leg, which suffers nerve damage from a back surgery. She also hopes the money will help Cabell with basic needs like snow shoveling, water delivery, food and help with mortgage payments that he can’t keep up with from his fixed Social Security income.

With help from Cabell’s friends, a temporary water tank has been installed outside his small log cabin that supplies running water, and there are plans in the works to drill a new well to provide a permanent solution.

“We are so happy with the support,” Walker said. “He can just have time to heal his body and we have him working with a physical therapist now so hopefully he can walk upright. Who knows – maybe he can ski again someday and he would like to go back to work.”

Originally from New Jersey, Cabell moved to Whitefish in 1976 after attending college at Western State College in Colorado on a track scholarship. He took a ski class during his senior year where he was introduced to the sport and, after graduating, he moved to work at Copper Mountain in the early 1970s.

“All of a sudden, a friend of mine called me one day and said, ‘Hey, I heard about this ski hill up in Montana,’ so we came up here and this guy named Buckets had a place up for rent,” Cabell said.

Cabell had dreams of being a ski patroller and after working as a snowcat driver on Big Mountain and other seasonal jobs, he was offered the patrol position.

After six years on patrol, Cabell quit to work other jobs in town like cleaning up the bars and working the front desk at hotels that gave him more opportunity to ski on his own time.

In 1996, Cabell bought his 8-acre lot, where he lived in a camper for several years before building his small log cabin, using his neighbor’s well, living simply and skiing Big Mountain up until a few years ago.

As of Dec. 19, Cabell had more than $51,000 in donations, with some individuals giving as much as $1,500. Jesse Miller with Big Mountain Botanicals has also joined the effort and has helped with equipment and labor to build plumbing infrastructure.

“I’m just thankful for friends and the people that care,” Cabell said.

Walker says Cabell would have never asked for help if she hadn’t coordinated the effort, and she’s happy to support a friend in need.

“Gary is just a beautiful soul and spirit that just touches people by his presence,” Walker said. “It’s not a front he’s putting on, he is just that kind and open-hearted and that loving.”

The Montana Tap House and Big Mountain Botanicals are hosting Cabell’s 75th birthday party and fundraiser on Jan. 7 at the Tap House in Whitefish from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Gary Cabell skis through powder on Big Mountain in the late 1980s. Courtesy photo.