Greetings, Beacon Nation! Since 1983, the Flathead Valley’s legions of mountain athletes, hobby joggers, off-the-couch crushers and reasonably fit common folk have laced up their waffle racers and consented to an agonizing ascent of Big Mountain, competing for the title of King and Queen of the Mountain while raising money for the local cross-country skiing club.
The Big Mountain Run (pictured above) hasn’t changed much since its genesis 44 years ago: It’s still a no-frills, 3.8-mile trek up the Danny On Trail to the summit of Biggie with 2,200 feet of elevation gain. Glacier Nordic Club, on the other hand — the nonprofit that grooms and maintains the community’s largest network of cross-country ski trails, and which the Big Mountain Run supports — has changed dramatically since its inception in 1984, growing the local skinny-ski scene from a single set of classic tracks around the perimeter of Whitefish Lake Golf Course to a veritable Nordic oasis.
During the 2024-2025 ski season, Glacier Nordic Club groomed 3,688 miles of trail across five venues, including Whitefish Lake Golf Course, Meadow Lake Golf Course, Round Meadow, Muldown Elementary, and the Big Mountain Nordic Trails (BMNT), which stretches from the base of Big Mountain down to Lower Haskill Basin.
BMNT has grown in popularity due to the access it offers to higher-elevation snow, while lower-valley locations, including the golf course, have struggled to maintain an adequate season-long base. Last year, more than 9,000 skiers were recorded entering the trail system at the BMNT trailhead. Glacier Nordic also hosted programs for 267 kids, 101 adults, and 2,641 paying trail users (GNC estimates it received 20,000 groomed trail uses total).
And now, the organization has broken ground on the Big Mountain Nordic Enhancement Project, its first-ever winter grooming operations facility for machine storage and maintenance space at the BMNT trailhead.
So, if you’re wondering what would compel anyone to run (or hike) to a mountain summit for nothing more than local bragging rights, this newsletter is for you.
I’m Tristan Scott, with you for this cardio-and-corduroy edition of the Daily Roundup.
As noted, the Big Mountain Run is a fundraiser for the Glacier Nordic Club, a nonprofit that grooms most of the north valley’s cross-country ski trails. While Nordic skiing is a winter sport, the competitive skiers spend the summer doing dryland training, which includes bouts of roller skiing on the roads and lots of running uphill, either on Big Mountain or through Glacier National Park. That training clearly pays off, as Glacier Nordic Club members frequently appear atop the junior podium.
Anyone who’s visited the Big Mountain trailhead in recent weeks will have noticed the construction of a new grooming operations facility. It’s the initial goal in a multi-phase project to construct the organization’s first-ever grooming operations facility for machine storage and maintenance space; preserve and expand the 25-kilometer trail network; create a learning area for programs in the low-snow future; and create a more welcoming, inclusive and accessible Nordic venue with a new snowcat and improved infrastructure to better serve the community all season long.
Glacier Nordic Club set a goal of raising $500,000 by this summer in order to complete the facility by December, replacing its corrugated steel shipping container and outdoor SnowCat storage system, which Jennie Bender, the organization’s executive director, called “a huge milestone for our trail operations.”
“All of our groomed venues will benefit from having an indoor space to work on and store machines and other gear,” Bender stated in a newsletter.
The project’s second phase involves the construction of new trails, including a reroute of Rollercoaster, which is becoming a paved access road, as well as a beginner friendly loop around Stoltze Knob and a bridge to reconnect the Cedar trails to the pond. The third phase involves purchasing a new SnowCat, groomer truck, and an increase of Nordic infrastructure at a higher elevation.
Learn more about ways to support the project here. To participate in the Big Mountain Run on July 25, register here.
And that about wraps it up for today, folks. May the breeze be at your back during this last leg of the journey through the remainder of the Daily Roundup.
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