Avery and Shawn Patrick

I was born in Minneapolis in 1990, and at two weeks old my mom and dad brought me home to Great Falls. My grandpa, George Willett, had been running Showdown since 1973, so I was on the hill about as soon as I was anything.

My first memory up there is breakfast. There used to be tables right in the main part of the lodge, in front of the kitchen. Grandpa was always around, and my mom and dad were both working up there that winter. Everybody was working, but also kind of hanging out. It has always felt like home. My first job, if you can call it that, was carrying trays back to the kitchen.

I don't remember learning to ski, and I love that, because it's really hard for some people when they learn later. I had a season pass with my name on it in 1992-93, and I signed it before I could write. I tried snowboarding a couple of times, and there's photographic evidence. My parents also signed me up for ski league, and I owe the instructors an apology. I figured out early that if I cried and asked to go inside, they'd give me a hot cocoa and a brownie and send me right back out. If I peed my pants, though, they had to wash my things and I was done for the day. So to the ski instructors from back then, I'm sorry.

On New Year's morning in 2000, when I was nine, I was one of the first three skiers up the lift, and our picture was in the paper the next day.

I went to high school in Helena and then to Carroll College, where I got my degree in history and political science. But I never really left. Every Christmas break, through high school and college, about eight winters in all, I worked at Showdown in the latte bar and on the kitchen cash register.

Then I came back to work for my grandpa for what I thought would be one winter. That was fourteen or fifteen years ago. I spent three or four years in guest services, and it was one of the most important parts of my time there, because guest services is like Grand Central Station. You learn everything that's happening on the mountain. Back then there was only one place in the lodge to print season passes, so every season pass family came upstairs to have their picture taken. I worked some weekends at the town office in Great Falls too. For a while I knew almost every season pass family, or at least their names. That was a really cool time.

In 2015 I became the marketing director. In 2018 I got to announce that we were renaming Pay Dirt. It's The George now, after Grandpa.

In 2020 my mom put together the deal to buy the ski area, and my husband Shawn and I decided we wanted to be part of it. We took out loans against our houses and put money down, because we wanted to be as involved as we could. I stayed the marketing director, and I'm the vice president now too, but it's a different job when your paycheck depends on the company doing well. That really changes the game. I never, ever thought I'd own a business. I'm also president of the Intermountain Ski Areas Association these days.

In 2024 I did a business development program with a social media coach, and I started posting the behind-the-scenes things you wouldn't put on the business page, on my own page, Avery from Montana. We'd only ever marketed to people who could drive here from inside Montana. That first season the videos had something like twelve million impressions, on a zero-dollar budget, and we had more skier visits than I'd ever dared to hope for. People started flying in from all over the country. I love Big Sky, but we're not Big Sky. We're a family-run ski area, and the people who came wanted us to be just what we are.

That winter two brothers from Arkansas flew into Bozeman, rented a place, and cooked dinner every night because it was such a big trip for them. My mom and I offered them lift tickets, and they said no, that wasn't the point. They were there to support a family-owned ski area. That one has really stuck with me.

The videos also brought me messages from women all over Montana and the country who were doing really cool things, so I started a group called Wild Women. We get on calls twice a month, and twice a year we host a summit at Showdown and The Edith, the hotel we bought in 2022. About eighty women come to each one, and at the winter summit we get a half day of private skiing on the mountain, just us.

Shawn learned to ski at Showdown too, and his family has home videos of skiing up there in the nineties, which is mind-boggling to watch. We've had three kids in six years, so it's a balancing act, and these days I'm on the bunny hill most of the winter. Honestly, it's the most fun I've ever had at Showdown. Last winter my five-year-old skied the magic carpet by himself, and I felt totally comfortable, because people up there keep an eye out for each other. My daughter was three and ripping all around. Every tower on the beginner chairlift has a sign with the responsibility code, and we're adding a different skiing animal to each one, so riding up with my son we can guess which animal comes next. I hope they're up this winter. Being a mom just gives you a different way of seeing things.

We're open five days a week right now, and if new skiers keep coming, maybe we'll be open seven. However it grows, I want it to keep feeling like home, and I want skiing to stay affordable. Winters in Montana are long and there isn't much sunshine, and I really believe they need skiing. Both sides of my family are up there, my dad's and my mom's, and it's a whole winter community, something to look forward to every weekend.

One of my favorite Showdown stories is about a longtime customer and family friend who'd been going through a hard time. I told him it was so good to see him up there, and he said he'd just had to come to Showdown to get closer to God. No matter what you believe, I think that says something. It's a peaceful, special place for so many people.