Z Bar T

Z Bar T took its name from the Wilson family's cattle brand. The family opened it on Forest Service land and part of their own holdings about two miles east of Pipestone Pass. Outside Bozeman gives the opening year as 1959; a 2013 sale listing dates the first season to 1961–62. The Wilsons built a chalet, a ski patrol A-frame and a ticket stand, with a rope tow, a T-bar and a Pomalift.^1,2

The listing, citing a Montana Standard article of September 14, 1969, reports 12,656 visitors the season before and a planned $500,000 expansion with two new lifts, the first 5,000 feet long on the north side of Toll Mountain. The Forest Service's 1973 guide, calling it Z-T, listed a T-bar, a platter lift and a rope tow on 30 acres of runs between 6,430 and 7,110 feet, with night skiing and a day lodge with a snack bar and bierstube; a state guide that year counted four trails.^2,3,4

Poor snow and the cost of keeping up the access road had brought money trouble by spring 1976, and the land was later sold. A state travel booklet with notes for the 1975–76 season still listed the area. In 2013 the old lodge, by then a home, was for sale with about 237 acres.^1,2,5

TodayThe original chalet is a private home; old buildings and T-bar towers still show, but the runs have grown over. (2023)¹