Commuting From The City to The Mountains For Work?

By Lucia Stewart, 2-20-07

Here in the Gallatin Valley, we are a little backwards sometimes. While many move to Montana to get away from commuting to work, thousands of people drive out-of-town, 45 miles away, up into the mountains to the small 1,500 year-round resident town of Big Sky.

Why? Employment is profuse and frantic employers go to great lengths to create incentives to make the commute. Construction jobs often pay $5- $10 more an hour. The Yellowstone Club will pay for employees’ gas. And Moonlight Basin offers a free shuttle system, to name a few.

And above all, housing in Big Sky is unattainable without paying $700 rent for an actual bedroom and next to impossible to purchase on a service or construction income level – a majority of the employment available.

A recent article in the New York Times discusses how Big Sky Resort and the Yellowstone Club are purchasing motels in the Big Sky area to house employees and contract workers.

An estimated 1,500 cars commute the windy two-lane road a day, but that doesn’t mention the multiple commuter parking lots brimming with cars left in the valley. Bozeman and Belgrade are the communities that house the workforce for the growth and development in Big Sky.

One couple has worked at Big Sky Resort as head of maintenance and head of lift operations for close to 10 years. They just bought a house in Belgrade, a 105-minute commute a day. It’s all they could afford.

“I spend close to $10,000 a year on gas alone commuting to Big Sky from Bozeman,” said Jozie Hrencher, owner of Design for the Mind painting business. Most of the commuters are not driving economic cars but big ton trucks loaded with ladders, construction materials and staff.

With a 60 to 90 minute drive, bumper-to-bumper during commuting hours and often treacherous in the winter, its no wonder people hate the drive, the time and the expense. But they do it anyways. Sometimes we are a little backwards here in the Gallatin Valley.