Nyla and Kevin Taylor bought the Great Divide ski area in 1985 and have since raised three daughters there. LISA KUNKEL/Helena Independent Record

Great Divide owners enjoy life on slopes

By EVE BYRON
of the Helena Independent Record

The Taylor family - Kevin and Nyla, and daughters Emily, Betsy and Adrienne – might be considered the ultimate ski bums.
Don't get this wrong, however.

Owning a ski hill like Great Divide is a lot of work. The Taylors can put in 14-hour days during the five-month ski season. They have hordes of people in their front yard during that time, all wanting something, whether it's lift tickets, food, drinks or the dozens of other skier needs. If they're not working in the lodge, snowmaking hoses always need to be moved, lift tickets need to be checked and injured skiers need attention.

Once the snow is gone, the summer days are filled with cutting in new runs, fixing equipment and making improvements.

"One year, the girls wanted to buy JetSkis, so we made them dig holes under (tree) stumps so we could blow them up,” Nyla recalled recently, laughing. "By the middle of the summer they said they didn't want the JetSkis that much.”

Blacktop to MarysvillePeople driving to Marysville no longer take the "Marysville Road.” With a freshly paved road, complete with shoulders and guardrails, it's now fondly known as the "Marysville Highway” to the locals, Great Divide Ski Area owner Kevin Taylor says with a laugh.

Sure, there are a few places where the ground settled and a torrential downpour earlier this summer made it unstable, so the work isn't quite finished yet, noted Lewis and Clark County Public Works Director Eric Griffin.

"We'll let it sit over winter and see if it quits moving,” Griffin said. "There are two spots that we've patched that are still settling. It's unfortunate, but the road is wonderful.” The six-mile stretch from the Lincoln Road turnoff to Marysville is now 28 feet wide, with a blacktop surface and distinct pavement markings.

The $8.9 million project was paid for mainly with federal funds, Griffin said, although the state paid a small portion and the county contributed staff time.

The pavement doesn't yet stretch all the way from Marysville to Great Divide, but Taylor said he'll continue to push for that.

Some work already has been done there, with guardrails on the particularly sharp curves. "It's quite an improvement,” Taylor said.

Eve Byron, Helena Independent Record

Yet there's something special about being raised at a ski area.

First tracks laid down in champagne powder so deep you need a snorkel just to breathe.

Magical moments when moonlight glistens off hoarfrost-laced trees. Having mom use the bulldozer to build a dirt bike race course.

Swimming in wetsuits in the 44-degree wooden barrel used to hold water for snowmaking.

"We learned how to drive by the time we were 9, completely by ourselves,” said Emily, now 23.

"We skied all the time when we were little. I was an instructor by the time I was 11 and a ski patroller when I was 16.

"Me and Betsy learned how to drive an excavator when we were about 10 years old. We weren't very good at it, but we could dig a hole.”

Kevin and Nyla Taylor didn't start out thinking they would someday own a ski hill. In fact, it was a broken down truck in Wyoming that got Kevin, a Pennsylvania native, into the business.

"I was out elk hunting in the hills above Laramie when my truck died. I was so mad I turned around and shot it,” Kevin said with a grin.

He walked to the nearby Happy Jack ski hill, where he asked for a ride and a job. He got both.

"I ran the lifts, then the rental shop and then I was mountain manager,” Kevin recalls. Meanwhile he also earned a degree in marketing, followed by a master's in finance.

He bounced around the ski circuit, working in Colorado at resorts in Vail, Arapahoe Basin and Beaver Creek and for the Wyoming office of tourism. Eventually he landed in Red Lodge, where he fell in love with the bartender.

"I had a great job in Billings, making good money, but I just quit and left everything to start working at the bar in Red Lodge,” Nyla said. "I was just going to do that for a year or two, then go to college.”
Instead, she and Kevin married, and they moved to the Black Hills in South Dakota to run a ski area near Lead. They were making good money, but didn't like working for someone else and decided to buy their own. They looked at ski areas in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, but settled on Great Divide in 1985, buying it for around $12,000 and the promise that the 1,400 certified ski club members could get half-price passes for the rest of their lives.

"We had a lot of money saved up, but it disappeared fast,” Kevin recalls.

"When we first bought the place and signed the papers, I walked up and saw holes in the deck. Then when I saw the kitchen I started crying, wondering what we had done,” Nyla added. "I was five months pregnant with Emily and we had been living the high life, being wined and dined and flown around by these ski areas that wanted us to buy them. After buying this, we didn't go out to dinner for three years.”

Emily was followed by Betsy who was followed by Adrienne. Instead of fancy dinners, they had picnics and wine in the summer on their own slopes. They took long walks, bought horses, and Nyla learned to run bulldozers, excavators and other heavy equipment.

They were stay-at-home parents yet brought their children to work with them, with Nyla setting the girls in wind-up swings while she flipped burgers in the lodge, or letting them fall asleep on warm coats behind the bar while their parents poured drinks.

"It wasn't much different than running a farm or a ranch,” Kevin said.

And like all rural families, they have their adventure stories. Nyla recalls a horrified customer telling her the girls were lying under a cattle guard one day, watching cars drive over them. Another time they were clad in tutus, ice-skating down a ski run. Then there was the time they had a battery-activated baby doll that quivered, and they girls put it in a backpack and took it skiing, shocking a guest who thought the doll was real.

"They're really creative, and sometimes that's not so good,” Nyla says, laughing again. "But we have a lot of fun, probably too much fun sometimes.”

These days, the girls are grown. Emily still works at the ski area, but Betsy has a job in town, working part-time on the hill, and Adrienne has moved to Utah where she is – you guessed it – a ski bum.
"She says she's going to school, but come ski season ...” Kevin says, his voice trailing off.

"As long as they're happy,” Nyla adds.

Reporter Eve Byron can be reached at (406) 447-4076 or at eve.byron@
helenair.com.