A match made in Montana

Big Sky’s own skijoring team celebrates another season in one of the fastest-growing sports in the American West

By Leslie Kilgore EBS CONTRIBUTOR

Greg Hodge has loved the sport of skijoring since he first moved to Big Sky in the early ’90s. After building a home and setting up horse pastures in the Karst’s Camp area of Gallatin Canyon, he began pulling his son and daughter on skis at an early age around their property.

Now, he and his wife Julie are the sponsors and biggest supporters of the Big Sky-based skijoring team, Montana Wild Bunch. Hodge, their daughter Haley, and their son Cody, all compete with the team while Julie supports the group during the skijoring season. Traveling to events in Boulder and Red Lodge, Driggs, Idaho, and the annual Best in the West Showdown in Big Sky, the Montana Wild Bunch has become a team taking home many buckles — the coveted award for winning in one’s division along with a cash prize. Alongside their success, skijoring — the winter sport where a horse and rider pulls a skier or snowboarder behind them as they navigate a series of obstacles — is quickly growing in popularity, particularly in the northern Rocky Mountain West.

Speed, skill and some serious guts are what it takes to be a skijoring competitor. But it also takes an equine community, an organized team, or as the Montana Wild Bunch refers to themselves, a family, to get involved with the sport.

While experienced skiers are an important part of the duo, access to horses, trailers and other equine knowledge is integral to the whole learning process when first starting out in the sport.

“Big Sky can sometimes be a hard place to find your people, even as a young family,” Jenks said. “But I felt accepted by this group right away, which made my first competition in Big Sky even better. As nervous as I was before my first run, I had people to support me.”

Also a member of the Montana Wild Bunch team, Anna Kendall has lived in Gallatin County for most of her life and is a seasoned rider and skijoring competitor. She’s one of the original team members teaching and encouraging others in the community to join the sport.

“The whole spirit of the Wild Bunch team is to be inclusive and encourage good sportsmanship while also celebrating a love for skijoring,” Kendall said.  

Skijoring dates back several hundred years to Scandinavia. As a mode of transportation and communication, it was a practical way for people to travel during snowy winter months. In the late 1920s, at the second Winter Olympic Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland, competitors held a skijoring demonstration. Back then, the sport was performed without a rider with the skier driving the horse from behind while racing head-to-head with other competitors. It wasn’t until the mid-1940s that the sport commenced in the Rocky Mountain region in Steamboat and Leadville, Colorado.

“It’s all about getting the horse used to having a skier behind them and the skier getting used to being pulled by a horse,” Hodge said. “But it’s really all about having fun.”

The Montana Wild Bunch not only travels to compete in many skijoring events throughout the season, they also gather socially to support one another outside of the competitive arena throughout the year, doing what many families do together: laugh, eat, drink and be merry.

“Competition and improving at the sport are important, but getting more people involved matters too,” said Chris Plank, a longtime Big Sky local and Wild Bunch member. 

While competition is fierce at many of the regional events, the social aspect of the sport and culture is just as important.

“I’m on Team Spouse,” Julie said. “My job is to shoot photos and videos and make sure everyone on the team is safe, fed, happy and having fun.”

She’s joined by other family members of competitors who do the same throughout the team’s season.

“Team Spouse—we don’t ride, we don’t ski, we just cheer them all along and have fun doing it,” said Big Sky resident Mark Gibbons, another member of the support team.

Gibbons’ wife, Morgan Owens, was a wrangler in the area for years before she began riding in skijoring competitions. This year at the Big Sky Skijoring event, Gibbons and Owens surprised their families, who were coming to see the team compete, with a wedding at Soldiers Chapel the same weekend.

“It was the best way to celebrate our wedding and surprise our families,” Owens said.

While the Montana Wild Bunch all emphasize the importance of fun, friendships, culture and lifestyle for the team, their talent can’t go unnoticed.

“We all placed and won at different venues this season, which is impressive,” Hodge said.

Team member Matthew Sitton added that while placing or winning is always rewarding, honoring the history and tradition of the sport through each team member’s extended family is also meaningful. “My seven-year-old daughter can’t wait to travel with us and join the Junior Division next year,” he said.

As another skijoring season ends and the team shares stories, photos and videos, inside jokes and memorable competition moments from this winter at a team BBQ, it’s clear the group is more than just a squad of athletes and competitors.

“We’re all in this together,” Julie said, her teammates around her. “The friendships that have come through skijoring and the joys from all the camaraderie are insurmountable. Because, at the end of the day, sure it’s about the competition, but it’s also about finding your people.”