Idaho Vacation–Schweitzer Mountain

Monday

Today started off beautifully. We could see the resort, lit up in the morning light, from the condo. The first ski day was off to a fabulous start. The sun was shining brightly on the Schweitzer Mountain Resort sign. 

Welcome to Schweitzer Mountain Resort

We parked and walked into the village. Since we were there Saturday, we knew the drill. First, we traded our printed out tickets that were purchased from home for genuine ski tickets, which we attached to our jackets. Then we walked across the plaza to the rental shop and were sized for boots, skis, poles, and helmets. All geared up, Andrew and I headed for the slopes. We started off on the easiest run – Happy Trails - to let our legs remember the feeling of skis attached to our feet. After a slow ride back up to the plaza on the Musical Chairs lift, Andrew took a bunch of pictures, including the panorama below that shows the Basin Express lift on the left and the Great Escape lift in the center.

Panorama from the village

After a couple hours of skiing, we needed a break, so we stopped at the Outback Inn, which is at the bottom of the Outback Bowl on the back side of the mountain. We clumsily walked in and grabbed an ice tea, bag of chips, and a chocolate chip cookie. Then we headed back out to the patio, which was made of processed planks. It was mostly covered with carpets, but where it wasn’t, it was like ice. We both nearly fell before reaching a table.

Refreshed, we headed back out to the slopes. On one run, we watched a group of people head off in one direction. We decided to go a different direction, which appeared to be easier. Turns out we ended up doing the bottom part of Downhill Run, which is a Black Diamond. Andrew got his first Diamond experience today.

By 2:00, we were both getting tired and decided to save some energy for the next two days. We turned in our skis and poles at gear check, then headed back down the mountain.

Tuesday

Today didn’t start off very well for those of us who were planning to ski. There were low clouds, the temperature was well above freezing, and it was raining. Regardless, we got ourselves ready and headed to the mountain. On the way, I changed my mind about skiing and headed to Sandpoint instead.

After watching trains for awhile, we decided to drive up to the ski resort to see how bad it really was. On the drive up the mountain, I was dismayed to see rivers of water flowing across the road from all the rain and melting snow. But then something magical happened. We came around a switchback turn and the water was replaced with snow. From this point onward, snow was falling instead of rain. At the top, we parked and walked around the village. The temperature was colder than expected, but the snow was very wet, heavy, and sticky.

Snowing and blowing conditions on the mountain

We considered getting our skis from gear check, but decided to get a first hand view of conditions at the top first. We used our lift tickets to ride the Great Escape lift to the top to see how bad the conditions were. The ride up was windy with snow blowing everywhere. For the first time, our goggles were starting to lose their advantage and spots started to appear before my eyes. At the top, we had seen enough. The lift operator stepped out of the booth to help us off the chair, but we decided to stay on the chair and ride it back down. 

Back in the village, we walked around and checked out all the various buildings: the Lakeview Lodge, the Selkirk Lodge, and the Chimney Rock restaurant.

Wednesday

As usual, I was up before dawn. As I puttered around the condo, working on my blog, I pulled open the curtains to try to slowly wake Andrew. Andrew gradually started to stir and come to life. I happened to look out the window again and it was snowing like crazy. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to cover everything in a thin white blanket.

Even though the day started off mostly cloudy and snowing, I had a good feeling that things would be beautiful today. On the way up the mountain, I predicted that the sun would be shining on the resort by the time we reached the top. I was not wrong.

Andrew and I gathered our skis and poles from the gear house, put on our layers, and were on the mountain by 9:30 am. At the top of The Great Divide, Andrew took some pictures. I was clearly excited to be standing in the sunlight. It was the perfect ski day combination: powdery soft snow, partial overcast, just below freezing, and no crowd.

David is happy to be on the mountain today

Further down The Great Divide, Andrew stopped for another picture. This picture shows the clouds and partial blue sky over Lake Pend Oreille.

Panorama showing Lake Pend Oreille in the distance

Once on the Outback Bowl side of the mountain, we explored all the Blue runs. The most challenging was Stella’s Run. I’m pretty sure that it hadn’t been groomed in awhile. Up to this point, all the runs were expertly groomed with only a light covering of fresh snow. It was nearly effortless to ski down, requiring very little concentration. But Stella’s Run was covered by about 8 inches of new snow and took extra effort and concentration to get through.

As the day progressed, the sky continued to clear. Only the top of the mountain was still in the clouds. Although sunny, there were specific areas where the wind was picking up snow and blowing it across the runs. On Kaniksu, the blowing powder was covering the tracks made from earlier skiers.

As the time got closer to closing, we decided to finish our day on the Schweitzer Bowl side. We took the Colburn lift up into the clouds. We stopped at the Sky House to check it out, then continued on Gypsy to the Lakeview lift. The view from the top was amazing.

David at the top of the Lakeview lift

After a few more round trips up and down the mountain, our bodies were starting to tell us to call it a day, but this was our last day, so we had to make the most of it. We decided to try the snow cross course. Andrew went first and I followed closely. The course was steep and had high banking curves. At one point, Andrew slowed down and I had to swerve sharply to miss him, I hit the thicker powder along the edge and had my first crash of the week, losing both skis and sliding about 10 feet beyond the point of impact. It must have looked bad because a teenage girl stopped to ask me if I was alright.

On our last ride up, the battery in the bar code scanner that is used to scan lift tickets apparently died. The ticket checker pointed the scanner at our tickets and then said “beep” for each of us. We returned to the village at 3:28. The skiing portion of our trip was now officially over.

Click the photo below to see the photo album.