schweitzer mountain

I have been skiing Schweitzer since I was 14 & i am now 55. We have had to suck up a very bad year, as you all know. I have supported the Mountain all of my adult life. I retired from the Army in 2011 & moved back to Sandpoint, as this is where I grew up. I am hoping to continue to support the mountain in the Future. Here is my problem. I am a season Pass holder, Sunday- Friday. The cost of the 2015-2016 season pass is the same price that I paid last year. You folks sent us a letter asking us to continue our support. In your letter, you stated that the Season Pass Holders consist of 60+% of sales, However you have been offering discounts on tickets almost the whole year due to weather conditions. Where is our Discount. I understand that buying a pass in May, July, or November is a gamble. All the other resorts are offering great discounts. You should consider offering us a break!! Thank You, William Jewsbury, US Army Retired, (360) 921-0052

The rooms are not a good value for the price. When we stayed there on our honeymoon (mind you it was the worst winter in years so the hotel was empty) they tried to stick us in a terrible room with no view to start. When my husband tried to call the front desk to complain the phone didn't even work. We ended up getting upgraded to a better view but the room was still mediocre at best. When we went to use the television and DVD player neither was hooked up. The room smelt funny and every time we went to push the elevator button it shocked us. It is simply put outdated and needs a lot of updates to make it worth the value. We even had 5 friends we recommended to the resort and it was pretty embarrassing to say the least. They will probably never return to the resort either.The restaurant in the Lodge was even worse. We tried to have dinner there and 3 of our meals came out cold while the other meals tasted horrible. And the price was not cheap or I might not be as disappointed. Besides that the service was some of the worst I've experienced in years.It makes me really sad that our honeymoon at Schweitzer was such a negative experience. Food= terrible, Rooms= over priced and outdated, Service= not great. All in all I recommend staying in a air bnb on the hill or in town. Check out Talus Rock (we had our wedding there and it's really close to the ski hill) Or the Lodge at Sandpoint (right on the water and again probably at most 20 minutes from the top of the hill)I sadly will probably never stay at Schweitzer again although I will ski there since I love the hill. It was a real bummer to have such a bad stay somewhere I was so excited to share with my family and friends.

I am writing as the leader of a 28 person group of skiers who spent the last week of February at Schweitzer Mountain Resort, just a short distance from Sandpoint, ID. I’ll begin by saying the US west coast ski areas were experiencing one of the worst ski seasons in history due to minimal snow cover; Schweitzer did their very best to make sure we got in as much skiing as possible, on the best snow possible – more below.LODGING – We stayed in the Selkirk Lodge, right on the mountain adjacent to the Basin Express quad chair lift. I don’t know when this building was renovated, but our room looked like new. It was clean, tiles were well grouted, the paint was fresh-looking, and the furnishings in good condition. The Internet pictures do not adequately portray how nice they look. We were in a “standard” room with two double beds, a small square table (about 3 feet square) with two wooden chairs, a three drawer dresser with a shelf and serving as a stand for the flat screen TV and DVD player. The queen beds were separated by a night stand with a clock (-radio?). The room phones do not have voice mail. The bathroom had a tub with shower and commode; the small sink was in an alcove just outside the door to the tub/commode room. There was also an open “closet” for coats (etc.) in that alcove as well as a hair dryer, iron, and ironing board. In the bedroom there was a wide double, sliding-door closet. Bedding was fully adequate with a comforter and spread on the bed. Each bed had 7 pillows – two flat for sleeping, two puffy for sleeping, two full-size for decoration, and one square decorative. Most, if not all rooms have a sliding glass door which opens to a one-foot deep balcony which is primarily decorative, but which many used as a refrigerated space for food and beverage. That is the one short-coming of the rooms. While the rooms are equipped with a mini coffee maker (with coffee and cocoa makings provided), it would be nice if the mountain could invest $150 per room and place a small refrigerator and microwave in each (assuming the electrical system could handle the load). The rooms (and most of the area) have free Wi-Fi service, but the internet kept dropping out and signing back in was awkward. The front desk is staffed around the clock and they have DVD’s available for viewing by guests. They also have towels available for the outdoor pool and hot tubs (3). There is a ski/board storage room (accessible with your room key) and a room of free lockers with combination locks for skis/boards on the lobby floor near the front desk.EATING – The village is small and eating facilities limited though adequate. A buffet breakfast was included with our lodging and served in the Chimney Rock Grill in the Selkirk Lodge. It included a wide variety of breakfast options including bacon, sausage links, scrambled eggs, and home fries/potatoes O'Brian most days. We also had “marginal” waffles one day and egg casserole on another day. There was fresh fruit, juice, coffee, yogurt, cereal, etc. daily. The only real complaint was the hot food could have been hotter.The evening after our arrival, we had an upgraded welcome party in the conference room of the Selkirk Lodge. The meal included soup, mixed greens salad, baked potatoes (this is Idaho) with lots of “fixings”, a large brownie for dessert, coffee, tea, and a “drink ticket” for wine, beer, or soft drinks. It was well received by all. Lunches are available in several venues in the village. I ate in the Lakeview Café cafeteria (bowl of chili in several styles about $8), the Mojo Coyote Café (Panini sandwich about $8), Gourmandie (specialty sandwiches about $8). The only on-the-slopes dining option is the Outback Inn which was closed along with the rest of the backside of the mountain. The $5 burgers they normally serve on Wednesdays were available in both the Lakeview Café and Gourmandie on Wednesday.In addition to the potato bar meal noted above, we had a delicious BBQ group dinner in the Selkirk Lodge Conference Room. Preceded by a cheese-plate appetizer and Spring Mix salad, the meal of BBQ chicken quarters, ribs, sauce, steamed fresh asparagus, and roasted potatoes was praised by all. The delicious apple crisp dessert with whipped cream was an excellent finish. [See my separate review of the excellent group meal we had at Ivano’s Ristorante in Sandpoint.]Non-group dinners were eaten in several places including the Chimney Rock Grill. A Wednesday Prime Rib dinner (for 16 of us) was good, filling, and included a trip to the decent salad bar – the prime rib was prepared to the requested temperature and accompanied by sautéed vegetables and roasted potato slices. They also serve fish and chips (about $13.50) and a wide variety of other meals; the salmon was reported to be especially tasty. Six of us ate at Powder Hound Pizza one evening, dining on two large pizzas – Thor’s Hammer and Garbage Can – both excellent, filling, and about $11.50 for each of us including tax and tip. Some folks went into Sandpoint for shopping and/or eating. [See comments below about transportation to/from Sandpoint.] Six of us ate at Trinity at City Beach, enjoying a good, if not perfect, meal in an attractive setting.SKIING – As noted above, lack of snow was a problem at Schweitzer the last week of February. The mountain crews did an excellent job making decent, fun skiing available. The top of the mountain had a fair covering of natural snow and the snow makers worked all night to help keep good coverage on the Midway trail and around the base of the lifts on the front-side of the mountain. Skiing was fun on what probably amounted to about 40% of the normal terrain, with the backside closed due to an absence of snow at the base of the chairs. The mountain is well groomed nightly making many of the blue runs reasonable for folks who usually stick to just greens. We had bluebird days and the groomed slopes made for good skiing without being bored.STAFF – I must comment on the friendliness, courtesy, and helpfulness of the staff throughout the mountain and Sandpoint. They did a great job of taking care of us from the beginning taking our bags to our rooms quickly and right to the end getting them loaded on the bus for our 3:15 am departure. The food service personnel, the “lifties”, the equipment staff, the instructors, the mountain hosts who skied with us the first morning, the activity staff, and certainly Matt and Katie with Group Sales could not have been more helpful. Even the CEO joined us for our first morning of skiing.OTHER – The only other item I want to touch on is transportation to/from Sandpoint for groups without their own transportation. Sandpoint is a quaint town with a number of shops that many found attractive. There are also numerous dining and drinking establishments that serve quality food and drink at a respectable price. The Schweitzer Shuttle provided to guests free of charge will get you down off the mountain to the “Red Barn” where it meets the SPOT bus – a free town shuttle. The total travel time is a little under an hour. However, due to the currently reduced number of mountain shuttle runs, there is about a 30 – 40 minute connection time added in the mornings when heading into town; in the afternoon, transfers are almost immediate. The only problem with the system is the mountain shuttle will not get you back up the mountain after 5 pm except on Friday and Saturday. That means you cannot use it to eat dinner in town on other nights. The mountain says the security van will pick you up with prior arrangements, but it can only carry 5 or 6. There is reportedly a new taxi service that will take you to or from town for $25 per vehicle each way – that could work for small groups. I don’t know if the lack of transportation to town is caused by a lack of demand or a desire to keep diners on the mountain. It may do the latter, or it may cause them to stay in town and use the shuttle to get to the mountain and back rather than the reverse.CONCLUSION – We had a good week at Schweitzer and would highly recommend it for others. Many folks indicated how much they would like to come back sometime when the whole mountain is open.

It's been a brutal winter in the west and Schweitzer has been no exception. Mountain has done it's best to keep the lights on and lifts turning. Skiing was good for the family, but the warm temps and freezing temps at night have made for some icy conditions this month. The village is quaint and has a couple restaurants that make for some good food and drinks for lunch. Will definitely come back next year and hopefully we'll have some better snow.

I have skied Schweitzer several times prior to kids and with kids. We really do love this mountain. The high speed lifts make for a great ski day. Our last trip up was for a ski race that my three children participated in. We decided not to stay on the mountain due to high costs for just two nights. Instead we stayed down in Sandpoint. The snow was not great on the mountain due to high temps and lack of snow fall. That obviously is not their fault, they did the best they could with grooming and pulled off a good race for conditions. Job well done! However, I feel that the lift tickets could have been discounted a bit, my ticket was $65.00 instead of $72.00. Other than the race kids there were very few people there. As for eats, I do enjoy the couple of restaurants there in the village and we have always had a good meal. Another huge plus is the boot dryer in the lodge, it really came in handy! Will definitely go back and when the snow is good and plentiful, the skiing is excellent. Lots of runs and difficulty levels.

Our first time to ski at Schweitzer and we really enjoyed our day. The weather was beautiful and the view from the mountain is astounding. Lots of the runs were closed due to lack of snow, but we all got in some good runs before the snow got too slushy for good skiing.

Skier's mtn. has everything, open bowls, trees, groomers without the extreme elevations of Co. Good size mountain with a family mountain feel. One drawback is there are only a few restaurants and shops on the mountain and Sandpoint is 10+ miles away

Took the kids up here on a Saturday to work with them on learning how to ski. They did well and the attendant on the lift was great. Dined inside the main area and the quantity of food we received with our order was definitely adequate. Good atmosphere with helpful mountain staff.

Simply great! good skiing, friendly staff and no chairlift lines... what is not to like. Also they have silly cheap night skiing.love the madness.

A great ski resort and a great atmosphere! Taps is great after a long ski day! Holiday weekends are great, but lines are long!

The drive up the hill to the resort is gorgeous. The little village is perfect for skiers. We just went to visit and took some amazing photos on the way up and down.

As long as the Fall weather isn't bad, it’s a beautiful and peaceful spot for getting away: about 9 miles up the hill from Highway 95 and another 3 miles to downtown Sandpoint. The Schweitzer resorts are very new and nice. So quiet however, they roll up the sidewalks at 8:30pm. But a morning walk through golden Tamaracks and evergreens in the brisk air, after a hot coffee at the pub, is breath-taking. If you’re in better shape than I am, it may be less breath-taking.

No matter what time of year you are in Sandpoint, it is worth a drive up Schweitzer for the view. Especially at sunset - it is so amazing looking down over the lake and Montana Mountains.

This is a ski resort in the wintertime that looks awesome, but we hiked up one of the trails on the mountain and saw a wide variety of trees and plants with some fall colors starting to kick in. The elevation change made the hike challenging but the views of Lake Pend Oreille on the ascent and descent made it worth it. On the hike I also saw a mother wild turkey and here young in tow, which was sweet. Even if you do not hike up the ski mountain you can see great views from the ski area parking lots.

We went to visit to see what it would be like for the Winter.It is very pretty and small. The runs all looked moderate.They operate a chair in the Summer months for viewing.