About Our Company
Great Northern Cat Cabins was born out of necessity. As owners of a cat skiing operation in Montana, USA, we put our cats & cabins through demanding work in the backcountry on a daily basis. Over the years, we have run into issues with existing, broken seemingly good equipment, and fabricated our own parts/accessories to meet our daily demands. What we found as we began Great Northern Powder Guides was that there was not a good/solid cabin out there. They all seemed to leak, be too noisy, were not well insulated, and were uncomfortable… all important factors that go into the customer experience. We also found that the existing cabins were too heavy for the machines they were placed on, which made climbing steep inclines difficult and made fuel consumption high.
Our background is in skiing, fabricating, welding, and operating machinery. The combination of all these skills, gives us a great advantage to make our guests as comfortable as possible, while we are 20 miles away from the nearest electrical plug in.
Lower Overall Overhead Costs + Steeper Terrain = Increased Customer Experience
Faced with sub-par choices for cabins, we chose to make our own. We wanted to give our guests a first class experience all the way around, which meant we’d have to create a more comfortable, reliable, and cost-effective cabin.
When we began to design a new cabin, one big concern was fuel consumption. When driving passengers around in the backcountry all day, fuel consumption can run high. We really wanted to keep our costs down for our guests by saving fuel, so we use premium materials in our construction process to make our cabins lighter. This allows us to burn less fuel in a day than other cat skiing companies, which keeps costs down.
Another big advantage of the decreased overall weight of our cats is that we take fully loaded cats to places that can only be gone to with light machines. We can get to steeper terrain, better snow and steeper terrain than other companies…. increasing the overall customer experience of GNPG guests
Larger Interior – More Comfort for Clients and More Space for Gear
In addition to direct cost savings, these cabins also gives us the ability to bring more guests per cat, so more friends/guests can join in the fun. Our cabins can hold 14 to 15 skiers, 2 guides, and a photographer, where other companies can only bring 12 on the average. Private cat rentals see a greater value, since they can fit more people in the cat… reducing the price per guest.
The larger cabins also have extra room for some of the comforts of home, such as: room for beverages (hot chocolate, tea, lemonade), heaters, great ventilation, and are fairly quiet considering the cabins of cats essentially sit on giant motors and pumps. Our cabins don’t leak or rattle when traveling to our skiable zones.
