Mountain town kids have a unique perspective on life. Mountain Outlaw talked to a few while doing their favorite thing—skiing.

BY JEN CLANCEY

Mountain towns in the West are among the fastest growing places in the country. With so much energy and evolution in these dynamic towns, Mountain Outlaw thought it was fitting to seek the perspectives of those shaped by these communities and landscapes: the kids growing up in them.

While tourism and scenery can take center stage in mountain towns, residents continue to live routine lives in these unique places. Kids in communities like Big Sky, Bozeman and Driggs witness change resulting from rising populations and tourism where they live, but also call these evolving places home. Mountain Outlaw spoke to three kids to gain their insights and hear a little about their lives.

The following answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Billy Brennecke, 12, lives in Big Sky, Montana. He is on the Big Sky Freeride Team, loves the scenery in his community as well as his friends and family, and finds it funny that there are more golf courses than ski mountains in Big Sky.
Logan Ladd, 6, lives in Bozeman, Montana. She enjoys skiing, loves animals (especially her family’s dogs), and spending time with family by the creek.
Anna Milne, 11, lives in Driggs, Idaho. She is on the Grand Targhee Freeride Team, enjoys arts and crafts and competes in skijoring in the wintertime.
Sedona Kilgore-Karp, 11, is from Big Sky, Montana. She loves skiing and riding horses and hopes one day to be a competitive barrel racer and veterinarian. She also loves hanging out with her dogs, Darla and Chloe.

Mountain Outlaw: What’s your favorite ski story?

Anna: My favorite story was probably when I did my first competition here on Old Reliable. Old Reliable is kind of a tricky cliff that you go through on one of our competitions. It’s just a free ride, so you have to try to get jumps and stuff.

Billy: So one time, my first competition in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, one of my coaches—his name’s Robbie—he took us into this powder stash and we ran into a moose with its fawn and I ran right over his feet and [Robbie] picked me up by the shoulders and like dragged me out and forever since he’s been calling me moose meat because I almost got eaten by a moose
or charged.

Logan: My favorite story was with my first [ski] teacher. She was so nice. We learned how to … go in the woods there and we saw these signs and we go on the hills and it was so fast. It was so fun.

Sedona: I love skiing with my friends. We laugh a lot when we’re skiing. Like a lot! And when we fall, we laugh at each other too but always help each other up and we make sure we’re all okay.

MO: What do you think makes your town special? What’s your favorite thing about it?

Anna: We always see really fun wildlife. Like we saw a moose walking to Makerspace after school one time.

Billy: There’s only like 4,000 people, but we have so many great skiers … we’re a tiny town, but we got a big heart. And the mountain, it’s an iconic mountain … it’s just so fun to be home to one of the best mountains in the world.

Sedona: People who live here and are raising their kids here, even though we’re not related, we’re all kind of like a family and take care of each other.

MO: What do you wish your town had?

Anna: A pool. I probably wish they had one you could go to in the summers.

Billy: I wish it had a little bit more people, just more people so that I can be friends with more people. Logan: Laser tag [and an aquarium] and I wish it was in our city.

Sedona: An animal shelter where people could volunteer too. And more big sledding hills.

MO: What’s new and exciting about your town?

Anna: Building some new places and new restaurants and they renovated Makerspace.

Billy: There’s a lot of buildings and a lot of houses in the Town Center.

Sedona: I love BASE [Big Sky’s community center]. It’s super cool.

MO: If someone new was visiting your town, what would you tell them about it?

Anna: The town is a pretty cool place, and they should try skiing or snowboarding, because it’s really fun. They should go to Targhee and try it.

Billy: That it’s the real deal to go skiing here. And you wouldn’t want to go jump off the cliffs that me and my friends do because it looks easy but it’s hard.

Logan: How are you feeling? And welcome. Welcome to the city.

Sedona: We may be small, but we’re mighty.

MO: What’s your favorite place in your town?

Anna: I like Makerspace. It’s where you go and you get to make all sorts of things. You get to sew and we walk there a lot after school.

Billy: The mountain.

Logan: I like [my backyard]. There’s so much deer jumping over the fence, and then we can see how far they jump.

Sedona: Hungry Moose. Definitely.

Jen Clancey is the digital producer at Outlaw Partners.