Schweitzer Mountain

Exceeding expectations

After getting unstuck from cousin Lael’s driveway I headed westbound toward Schweitzer Mountain. I experienced a bit of sadness to leave family, knowing I would be alone again for a week or so until the backcountry portion of the trip begins and I’m with friends. But don’t feel sorry for me; I’m out in the wild seeing and skiing new things and places.

After a bit of driving south and west from Flathead Lake, the road follows the Clark Fork River. No more freeways, now I am in the real west. Big landscape, big rivers, big scenery. Did I mention things were big? The landscape is big but the population and towns are small, it is the real American West. The word that comes to mind is gritty. Not an insult, in many ways a compliment. I can see these people make things happen on their own. No Costco, no franchise hotels, nothing national. All local business. I did stop at one town to take a look around in Thompson Falls. The prominent feature? Of course Thompson Falls. I went on a walk to check out the falls, now a dam. I learned that most of the dams and power plants made in the west were built in the early 1900’s. Amazing what was built so long ago with tools available at the time.

A park was built around the dams and power plant. Here is one of the signs giving an overview.

Here is the main dam as shown above.

Thompson Falls Main Dam

Here is a sign showing a picture from when the construction was done. Unbelievable.

On another dam this fish “ladder” was built. I had no idea fish ladders were really different levels of pools that the fish elevated through.

Fish “ladder”

Looking upstream from Thompson Falls

This kind of landscape of mountains and rivers continued from here and became more grand as I traveled up into Canada. Schweitzer Mountain is located, quite literally, right on top of the town of Sandpoint. Starting from town, the road switchbacks up to the ski area. After maybe a 15 minute drive the first parking lot appears which is clearly labeled for RV’s. “Home for a few days”, I thought. No registration, no cost, nice. I was told there is a shuttle from this parking lot to the ski area that departs every 30 minutes. Never tested it.

After detaching from the camper I continued up the road to look at the ski area itself. It appeared this lower parking lot was a natural flat spot, and from here the mountain just kept going up and up right to the base area. The parking at the base area was somewhat limited and I could tell it was a significant earth moving project to scrape out the limited parking they had. On a weekend, be sure to arrive early to get a preferred parking spot up near the base area.

The base area itself is modestly sized but nicely done. Here is a shot of the ticket window. Zoom in on the prices. :-)

Schweitzer lift ticket prices

I grew up in Minneapolis and skied at places like Buck Hill, Hyland Hills, Pine Bend, Afton Alps, Welch Village….At all these ski areas (and I suspect every ski area in the Midwest) there is a base area where you can put on ski boots and go through the cafeteria to get a bowl of chili and hot chocolate. The carpet might not be something you would walk on in your socks and the table might look like this…

But at least you had somewhere to sit down to put on ski boats and could simply leave your parking lot boots under the table or on a hook. Some places out west don’t have this. You have to boot up in parking lot and leave all your stuff in the car. I hate that.

Schweitzer has done it right. Not too fancy but super comfortable. Real chairs, real wooden tables and hooks for your boot bag. Plus I didn’t see any signs calling out us cheap skates who might pack in a sandwich for lunch.

Schweitzer Cafeteria

The base area made me think of Grand Targhee, but more upscale and a bit larger. I could see that serious money was being invested and everything was first class. Not Four Season over the top, but really nice. Humbird, a brand new hotel was just opened. I took these pictures.

Humbird Hotel walk in entrance

Humbird Hotel Bar & Restaurant

Room rates at Humbird seemed to be $400 to $600 per night. Not cheap but thinking at Big Sky or Jackson it would be double or triple. Significant investment is being made at Schweitzer which this article describes. I went into the development office and chatted a bit with the manager. The estate of Keith McCaw – one of four Seattle brothers who made their fortune in cell phones – is now the sole owner of Schweitzer Mountain Resort. But what is really unique, is that the entire mountain is privately owned. Here is quote from their master plan:

transform the resort from a regional ski resort to the top 4-season resort in the northwest

If you live in the northwest and are interested in a ski resort vacation home, this is worth taking a look at.

What about the skiing?

The light was bad, it was snowing and then sleeting, my left knee hurt and the forecast was for rain the next few days. All the ingredients were there for me to be crabby and not enjoy myself. The mountain overcame, and I was amazed what a great place this is. These are the things that jumped out for me. Sorry, not a good day for taking pictures:

• It is big. 2,900 acres. Jackson Hole is 2,500 acres. I didn’t come anywhere close to seeing it all.

• It has real expert terrain. Not just cut groomed runs. Tree skiing everywhere and some real pucker factor stuff that I didn’t ski. Was not feeling my oats that day.

• This place was full of what I call adventure terrain. Many places where your route down was only limited by your imagination. This is in contrast to sharply defined clear cut runs which seem to be the norm at most resorts.

• I skied on a Sunday. No lift lines.

If you are going to Canada via Spokane do not miss Schweitzer. Or, consider a trip just to this area of Idaho. I have not skied Tamarack, Brundage or Silver Mountain Resort. These 3 and Schweitzer would be an excellent trip.