Wander the West

Skiing Schweitzer Ski Resort

	Schweitzer Village

January 2007

Stop number two on my ski road trip was Sandpoint Idaho and Schweitzer Ski Resort. I had previously visited this ski area in the late spring of 2004 and had tried some skate skiing there but no alpine skiing. I vowed that I would return and was very excited about the prospect of some powder skiing on what looked like one of the best glade skiing mountains I had ever seen.

Schweitzer offers an enormous amount of terrain at 2500 acres and boasts a vertical of 2400 feet. There are two sides to the mountain. The front is serviced by a high speed quad and the back by a high speed 6-person chair known to the locals as ‘Stella’. There also are several older slow chairs that allow access to some pretty awesome diamond and double black diamond runs that would be serious fun on a powder day. Unfortunately the powder gods did not smile on us and we had to settle for some high speed, trench laying, little kid slalom, groomer runs. But Schweitzer didn’t disappoint on this either. The grooming was above average and there was plenty of it. Some of the steeper stuff definitely got skimmed of in places as the day wore on, but overall it was great fun. We ran into some locals that we new from a few years ago and she toured us around all day. There aren’t too many things better than a blue bird day with a tour guide.

Maybe next time I’ll get that powder that I was hoping for. Until then I won’t forget the great groomed runs and fun resort called Schweitzer.

- Eric Davis