An Update From Crosscut

Crosscut Mountain Sports Center, a nonprofit community organization, was founded in 2016 with a clear and compelling vision: to connect people with nature. In the years since, we’ve made remarkable strides toward this goal — expanding access to trails for skiing, snowshoeing, fatbiking, hiking, and mountain biking, and welcoming tens of thousands of community members to programs in outdoor education, biathlon, mountain biking, and cross-country skiing.

To ensure Crosscut continues to thrive well into the future, we have made two difficult decisions: 1) to sell Trapper’s Cabin Ranch (also known as Lightning Creek), a property near Big Sky in the Taylor Fork area, and 2) to restructure our biathlon program, concluding our Elite Team biathlon program. Each reflects a strategic shift in how we allocate resources, with the goal of strengthening our programs, deepening our community impact, and securing long-term sustainability.

As a growing nonprofit, change is part of our journey — 2024–25 marked only our eighth winter season, and with each year, we continue to learn, evolve, and adapt — always with the goal of staying true to our mission and amplifying our impact.

Our priority moving forward is to continue serving our community with excellence, supported by a sustainable financial foundation. This means making strategic choices about where to invest our energy and resources.

These decisions were not made lightly. Like all nonprofits, Crosscut must balance our aspirations with practical realities, and we are committed to doing so in ways that preserve and strengthen Crosscut Mountain Sports Center as a community asset.

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Crosscut Elite Team

Launched in 2020, the Crosscut Elite Team grew from a shared vision among local biathletes and cross-country skiers to train at a high level in a supportive community setting. For five years, we were honored to support this team and proud of the dedication shown by its athletes and coaches.

We are immensely grateful for their hard work, passion, and pursuit of excellence. While the formal team program has concluded, we remain supportive of these athletes and look forward to cheering them on in their future endeavors.

Crosscut’s commitment to biathlon and Nordic skiing remains unwavering. We continue to support our Youth and Masters biathlon programs, which are among the largest of their kind in the country. We are proud to serve as the home base for the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Team. Our biathlon range and trails will continue to host local, regional, and national events.

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Trapper’s Cabin Ranch (Lightning Creek)

In 2021, Crosscut had the unique opportunity to become stewards of Trapper’s Cabin Ranch (with programs operated under the name Lightning Creek), a beautiful property in the Taylor Fork area. Over four years, we hosted a range of educational programs and community experiences there, welcoming participants from partner organizations as well as our own camps and events. We’re proud of the memories and meaningful experiences created on that land.

At the same time, Crosscut has remained focused on the long-term stewardship of our 500-acre property in Bridger Canyon — land that is zoned for hundreds of condos and now serves as a public-access hub for cross-country skiing, outdoor education, and recreation. This land was secured through the vision and efforts of our founders, who used a mix of grants, donations, and loans to acquire it for community use.

Unfortunately, as Crosscut invested significant time in relationship-building and substantial capital in upgrades, the needs in our community changed. For various reasons, this facility hasn't always been the right fit for our potential partners. Our youth-focused camps at Trapper’s Cabin Ranch also didn't see the enrollment we anticipated. Crosscut's challenges were not unique. We have heard from local nonprofits to well-established national organizations that they are also seeing reduced interest in wilderness-based programs. This is disheartening for the future of conservation and the proven benefits time spent in nature has on our mental health. Understanding if this is a temporary downturn or a more systemic trend will take time.

After trying a few creative solutions and exploring various partnership models, Crosscut made the difficult decision to sell the property. While we are disappointed, we look forward to sharing what we learned about this magical place with the next stewards of this land.

The sale of Trapper’s Cabin Ranch, completed in 2025, strengthened our financial position and allows us to reinvest in Crosscut’s future. We have retired our debt associated with the property in Bridger Canyon and are looking ahead to a phased approach to capital projects to meet the needs of the growing number of community members participating in our programs and recreating at Crosscut.

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We’re deeply grateful for the continued support of our community. From providing free skiing during the COVID-19 pandemic, to hosting an annual free ski day, to welcoming thousands of local schoolchildren to our education programs — Crosscut’s success is a reflection of the community behind it.

We invite you to explore our Strategic Plan for 2025–2030 to learn more about where Crosscut is headed.

The connection so many of you feel to the land we care for is the heart of our mission. Our staff and board remain committed to ensuring that Crosscut Mountain Sports Center continues to provide opportunities for outdoor connection and inspiration for decades to come.

Elite Team Named for 2024-25 Season

Crosscut Announces 2024-2025 Elite Biathlon and Para Nordic Team

Crosscut Mountain Sports Center is honored to announce its Elite Biathlon and Paralympic roster for the 2024-2025 winter season. Since 2019, Crosscut has cultivated and trained elite competition-level athletes from across the nation to compete worldwide in biathlon and para Nordic sports.

Among the selected team this season, para Nordic athletes Dani Aravich, Michael Kneeland, and Nicole Zaino have been named to the 2024-2025 U.S. Paralympics Nordic Team. Nik Burkhart and Vincent Bonacci have been named to the 2024-2025 U.S. Biathlon Team. Amanda Kautzer has been named to the National Development Group this year.

Crosscut’s Elite Team is unique—both biathlon and para Nordic athletes are part of a single program. This single-team approach reflects Crosscut's growth and development in connection with its partnership with the U.S. Paralympics Nordic (USPN) program. The combined Elite Team embodies Crosscut’s philosophy of inclusivity.

This year’s Elite Team is capitalizing on a successful 2023-2024 season where two athletes competed in IBU World Cups, two athletes competed in IBU Cups, four athletes competed in IBU Junior Cups and World Youth or Junior Championships, two para athletes competed at World Championships, and five para athletes competed at World Cup Finals. Regarding national team naming, two athletes were named to the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Teams, and two were named to the U.S. Biathlon National Teams & National Team Training Groups.

Athletes will call Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bridger Canyon their home training facility for the 2024-2025 season and receive world-class coaching from Crosscut’s staff, including biathlon coaches Seth Hubbard and Sydney Michalak, as well as coach Nick Michaud, who has a joint appointment with U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing and Crosscut.

The full roster is listed below:

Amanda Kautzer (Plymouth, MN)

Anna Marino (Canmore, AB)

Ben Sites (Bozeman, MT)

Brenna Barton (Bozeman, MT)

Cale Woods (Bozeman, MT)

Dani Aravich (Boise, ID)

Emma Pearson (Casper, WY)

Ian Burgess (Bozeman, MT)

Michael Kneeland (Bozeman, MT)

Nate Livingwood (Maine)

Nicole Zaino (Brookfield, CT)

Nik Burkhart (Olympic Valley, CA)

Tim Cobb (Westford, VT)

Ty Wiberg (Chippewa Falls, WI)

Van Ledger (Lake Placid, NY)

Vincent Bonacci (Salt Lake City, UT)