Hyalite Canyon

Hyalite Canyon Overview

Hyalite Canyon is known the world over as an unrivaled ice climbing venue, but not everyone knows that above all that ice is superb skiing. For the Bozeman-based skier, this is a paradise of mid-winter access and challenging terrain that requires creativity in order to skirt cliffs and find vertical relief amongst its large, flat, glacier-carved basins. Hyalite Canyon is covered in more detail than any other location due to its popularity and ease of access. The intention is to reveal what the locals already know: an intimate knowledge of the terrain here will reveal a winter playground where the best means of travel is often linking up couloirs, peaks, and basins to create loops and circuits which whittle down the often-skewed walking-to-skiing ratio. With such access, comes great responsibility. Hyalite is the go-to spot for much of Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, which means that it is often strained as a recreational resource. Please be extra mindful of fellow visitors and of how your actions may impact their visit and the future health of this shared space. Plowed access to this canyon would be impossible without the financial support of Friends of Hyalite Canyon, which keeps the road maintained throughout the winter. If you use this road, it's vital that you in turn support Friends of Hyalite through donations. See more about this in Chapter Six: Last Words on page 259. Each spring the canyon road is gated April 1st through May 15th to protect the road surface while the snow thaws and to give this well-used resource a bit of relief. During this period, the canyon is only closed to motorized vehicles, as you are still allowed to bike, hike and ski up the road. While the skiing is excellent during this period, the temporary car restriction is well timed. Hyalite receive modest snowfall all winter long, and provides a great early winter through early spring venue to ski through. Only a few of the features, like the Mummy, require extraordinary snowfalls to come into form, so if you skip the human-powered late spring season you likely won't be missing anything you couldn't have skied earlier in the winter. The Canyon is located in the Custer-Gallatin National Forest, with a majority of the skiable basins being within the bounds of the Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalo-Horn Wilderness Study Area, a designation within the Custer-Gallatin National Forest.

Zones Covered