A new nonprofit organization is moving forward with plans to develop a cross-country ski trail system atop Dead Indian Hill near the Chief Joseph Highway.

Earlier this month, the Cody-based Friends of Shoshone Trails received formal permission from the Shoshone National Forest to proceed with the project.

“We look forward to providing a place where people can ski, hike, snowshoe, ride fat-tire bikes, bring their dogs, etc. and enjoy winter,” Friends of Shoshone Trails (FOST) board member Karinthia Harrison said in a news release.

The nonprofit organization formed to facilitate the development of more mixed-use recreational trails in the Shoshone’s front-country. It picked the small road network on top of Dead Indian Hill — known locally as Henry’s Mill Road — for one of their first projects and began applying for permission to groom ski trails in the spring of 2023.

Shoshone officials issued a special use permit to FOST on March 6, which clears the way for the group to groom nearly 5 miles of roads in the head of the dry fork of Paint Creek, near the Northwest College Field Station. 

“It’s really an awesome place to go for a short ski,” FOST director Austin Waisanen said in the release. “If you leave after work, you can catch the sunset over the northern Big Horn Basin and when you get up to the top of the permit area, you can be skiing along in view of Sunlight Peak, Closed Mountain, Granite Peak in the Beartooths, Cloud Peak in the Bighorns, the Pryors, etc.”

The area can be reached in approximately 30 minutes from Cody and 50 minutes from Powell, which FOST believes will make it an attractive alternative to other local ski trail networks — like Wood River and Pahaska, which are more than an hour’s drive for many residents.

Elevations in the permit area range from 7,700 to 8,600 feet, and the group says there’s always enough snow for wintertime skiing.

“The basin is kind of reminiscent of Happy Jack near Laramie; you pull up and see 4 inches of snow drifted on the leeside of a sagebrush and think, ‘There’s enough snow to ski here?’” Waisanen said, “but once you get into the trees, it’s pretty consistent, and this time of year, actually pretty deep near the top.”

He said there’s enough snow for short downhill laps on some of the hills flanking the basin, but expects the primary use to be cross country or Nordic skiing.

FOST plans to raise money this summer and fall to purchase grooming equipment so they can begin operations next winter.

Harrison said the lack of a forest permit hindered the group’s efforts to secure a destination development grant from the Park County Travel Council last fall.

“But now,” she said, “the project is shovel ready.”

In the future, the group said it will consider proposing a warming hut, trail expansions and perhaps summer bike trails.

“We’re just getting started and we’d like to see the area become a focal point for all-season ‘frontcountry’ recreation,” Waisanen said, “but as for right now, we have our work cut out for us getting funded and getting up and going.” 

The special use permit allows FOST to groom between Jan. 1 and March 15 each winter through 2029.

For more information about the nonprofit, email friendsofshoshonetrails@gmail.com.