Warren Miller: The Godfather of Holy Sh*t

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Outside Magazine November 2004

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Warren Miller
The Godfather of Holy Sh*t (cont.)

MILLER'S QUEST TO LIVE THE DREAM has paid off in other ways. It's an overcast, snowy day in March, and we're flying into Bozeman, Montana, at 600 miles per hour on a Gulfstream 100 on loan from a friend of Miller's. Our destination is the most exclusive ski resort in the world—the Yellowstone Club, in nearby Big Sky. Since its creation in 2000, Miller has been the director of skiing at this members-only resort tucked away in the Madison Range.

Hank Kashiwa, the Yellowstone Club's vice president of marketing, greets us at the Buffalo Bar and Grill, where fur-collared women and men in starched jeans are wandering in for an early-afternoon cocktail. Kashiwa is a former Olympic skier and TV commentator. As I sit talking to him, I'm watching empty chair after empty chair circling the main lift just outside the window.

"We have nine lifts, with a capacity of 5,500 people per hour," Kashiwa says, "but we usually have about 35 people skiing a day."

Kashiwa waits for my face to register seismic disbelief, then gives me the membership lowdown. Fee to join? $250,000. Yearly dues? $16,000. Building requirements? One lot will set you back $1 million to $8 million, a spec house $3 million to $12 million. For that, you get a cap that reads private powder, your choice of 50 trails, service from a staff of 278, and lift rides with Warren Miller.

Miller seems completely at home at this gated mountain, rubbing parkas with people like Jack Kemp, Dan Quayle, and 148 of their wealthiest friends. "The second time I skied here," he says, "there were only six other people: Jack Kemp, Benjamin Netanyahu, the club's owner, and three bodyguards."

He scoots me out the door and onto the vacant high-speed quad. From inside the windless pod, he points out his nearly finished 6,000-square-foot house, which will have an unimpeded view of the immense stone-and-timber Warren Miller Lodge being built. Just over the ridge is a run called Miller Point. Miller's old films run on TVs in every lounge, lobby, game room, and bar. His name is everywhere—it's the Temple of Warren Miller.

"Isn't this just incredible?" he asks. "There's not a single track on this hill. Go on—make your turns really wide!"

We take a few runs down the lonely slopes, and I needle Miller about what a grueling job he's taken on. Director of skiing? As far as I can tell, the job requires only his occasional presence. I ask a lift operator—who's deep into a nice, fat novel—the longest he's waited for a skier to show up and ride his lift.

"Three hours," he says.

There's an awkward friction between Miller, rollicking ski bum of the people, and the exclusivity of a place like the Yellowstone Club. But given the abject poverty Miller grew up in, it's hard to fault him for his extravagances.

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