By Fischer Genau DIGITAL MEDIA LEAD
Big Sky’s newest mountain bike and hiking trail will soon open to the public. The beginner-friendly Hot Dog Trail is a 3.5-mile multiuse trail that will provide a mellower alternative to the existing Mountain to Meadow Trail running from Big Sky Resort to Meadow Village and Town Center.
The green circle trail is a joint project from Trail Dogs, the Big Sky chapter of the Southwest Montana Mountain Bike Association, and the Big Sky Community Organization, and it will parallel the Mountain to Meadow Trail to the south.
“It’s an easier, beginner-oriented trail, so tourists and people just starting out mountain biking can dip their toe into flow trails without having more advanced user groups riding quickly around them and up onto them,” Marco DelGuidice, the director of parks and trails for BSCO, told EBS.
The Hot Dog Trail has been in the works for several years. Kevin Daily, the president of Trail Dogs, told EBS that during the creation of the Big Sky Trails Plan in 2018, an easy, family-friendly route from Big Sky to Town Center was the most desired trail based on resident surveys and input. Daily credits the original idea for the Hot Dog Trail to Max Erpenbach and Wes Hoecker, two longtime members of Trail Dogs. Now that the trail is finally complete, Daily is excited for people to ride it.
“I’ve never seen a trail like this in all my years of mountain biking,” Daily said. “It’s the widest mountain bike trail I’ve ever seen. It’s the smoothest bike trail I’ve ever seen. And it does have some berms and some fun sections, but it is so friendly for anyone to go down.”
The trail was built by Pete Costain and his company TerraFlow Trails, and its width ranges from six to nine feet. Costain told EBS that it’s the longest trail of that width he’s ever built. The Hot Dog Trail passes through old forests on steep slopes, and Costain said it was challenging to chart a course through them without cutting down massive trees.
“We routed through a lot of those big spruce groves, and it is a really cool experience,” Costain said. “Aesthetically, it’s awesome.”
The trail is designated as multiuse, but Daily expects it will mostly be used by mountain bikers. The Hot Dog Trail’s opening was delayed by this week’s wet weather, but it will likely be opened over the Fourth of July weekend as soon as the dirt dries out.
Blazing a trail
BSCO and Trail Dogs officially broke ground on the project in 2025. However, BSCO had to secure easements from three private landowners to build the trail, which delayed its construction.
Boyne Resorts granted BSCO an easement last year, allowing the builder Terraflow to construct the first portion of the trail. In 2026, BSCO finally secured an easement from Middle Fork Partners, which owns roughly 60% of the land that the Hot Dog Trail passes through. Lone Mountain Land Company, which owns a small fraction of land at the end of the trail, eagerly supplied the third and final easement, and Terraflow completed the trail in June of 2026. The trail cost $212,000 to complete, and Trail Dogs led fundraising for the project.
“All of our funding is from donations, and it’s a pretty long list of donors,” Daily said.
Individual donors contributed smaller donations through Give Big Gallatin Valley, and Trail Dogs also received funding from Resort Tax, small businesses like Gravity Haus, Gallatin Alpine Sports, Kelly Kern and the Hungry Moose, and Conoco, and the Moonlight, Yellowstone Club, and Spanish Peaks community foundations. Lone Mountain Land Company and Matt Kidd, LMLC’s president, also both donated money, and Daily said that LMLC’s support was “instrumental” in building the trail.
In addition to fundraising, Trail Dogs will help maintain the Hot Dog Trail once it’s in use.
The future of Big Sky’s trail network
According to DelGuidice, BSCO has an “endless” list of trail projects, and he’s optimistic that more will be built in the future.
“In the last couple years, we’ve added a handful of new trails [in Big Sky],” DelGuidice said. “We’re building more trail ourselves in-house now, so that number’s going to be able to go up.”
One upcoming project is the Elkhorn downhill trail. The planned trail will be a pedal-up blue square flow trail at Moonlight Basin. Daily said it will depart from the top of the Elkhorn Spur Climb, summiting at the top of the Madison Eight and descending almost three miles down to the Madison Loop. The proposed trail is estimated to cost $135,000. Trail Dogs already has a $50,000 contribution from Resort Tax, and they intend to use it to build the first section of the trail this year. They plan to complete the trail in 2027.
BSCO is also planning a network of hiking, Nordic skiing and mountain bike trails near the quarry development that will further expand the quantity and variety of trails in Big Sky. The Hot Dog Trail, when it opens, will add one more thread to Big Sky’s growing.
“We’re really excited to realize this project,” Daily said. “It definitely took a ton of work, and we’re just so happy the easement is in place, and it can be something that the community can enjoy forever.”
Trail Dogs website and Instagram will announce the official opening of the new trail when conditions allow.
