Schweitzer Mtn, ID, March 17-22, 2025

[jimk]

I skied five out of six days last week at Schweitzer Mtn, ID. It was my first ever visit to Schweitzer. It was as beautiful as advertised. The skiable acreage (2,900 acres, 2,400' vertical, top elevation 6,400') was more impressive than I expected. The front face of the mtn features quite a bit of above tree line or nearly treeless terrain. It's a huge half-bowl. The backside is a similar giant half-bowl, but features more treed terrain. I caught two mostly sunny ski days and three fairly snowy/lower viz ski days. It snowed about six overnight inches of somewhat heavy snow before each of my last three ski days. Skiing this increasingly deep-ish snow in the offpiste was very challenging for me and I was leg-weary by my last morning of skiing, Saturday, 22 March 2025.

17 Mar 2025 Schweitzer approach road, impressive snowpack. At the base of the mtn, about 4000' below, there was virtually none.

View of base area with magnificent Lake Pend Oreille (Pond-der-ray) in the background. Perhaps the most impressive lake view I've ever seen from the 100 ski areas I've visited.

Looking up at the central part of the front face of the mtn from the base village.

My son heading down the front face of the mtn.

Again, on the frontside, the lake shore is barely visible in the upper background.

The upper lookers left of the front face.

Looking up the Lakeview chair lift line on the front face.

Other direction, March 18th. Lake covered by low clouds in the early AM.

A view across a section of the backside of the mtn. This was earlier in the week when the offpiste was dryer/friendlier.

View down the impressively steep Colburn Triple chair lift line on the backside of the mtn. The terrain depicted in the prior photo above is in background.

Excellent and copious tree skiing on the backside of the mtn.

More on the backside over by the Cedar Park Express chair.

Even from parts of the backside you can see the lake. It's 1,150' deep (5th deepest in the US) and nearly 45 miles long.

to be continued...

 

[jamesdeluxe]

No surprise that you had a great time there. As we've discussed before, Schweitzer consistently lands in many people's "best North American all-rounder" list.

Skiing this increasingly deep-ish snow in the offpiste was very challenging for me and I was leg-weary by my last morning of skiing,

Leg-weary for someone who frequently skis Snowbird -- or was it that you skied five straight days?

impressively steep Colburn Triple chair lift line

The double-blacks at the top of Outback Bowl are plenty steep for me (enough so that I only tried a couple); however, I recall some experts quibbling that the extent of true hotshot terrain may be Schweitzer's only shortcoming?

the lake. It's 1,150' deep (5th deepest in the US)

I wasn't aware of that. Here are the Top 5 (article):

1. Crater Lake: 1,943 feet
2. Lake Tahoe: 1,645 feet
3. Lake Chelan: 1,486 feet
4. Lake Superior: 1,332 feet
5. Lake Pend Oreille: 1,158 feet

 

[tseeb]

View of base area with magnificent Lake Pend Oreille (Pond-der-ray) in the background. Perhaps the most impressive lake view I've ever seen from the 100 ski areas I've visited.

Better than Tahoe from Homewood, Diamond Peak, Heavenly or even Palisades and Northstar?

I had my first two days there last season and enjoyed the skiing. How was your drive there from SLC?

 

[Tony Crocker]

I've skied Schweitzer 6 days in 3 separate seasons and Lake Pend Oreille has been visible maybe half an hour total out of that time. Maybe it's because all 3 visits were in Jan/Feb, but I have the impression it's chronic fog situation, enhanced by the lake as at Whitefish. I'm not complaining because all 3 trips had abundant powder.

Leg-weary for someone who frequently skis Snowbird

I don't get this either. Surely you own fat skis? They are more important for conserving energy in high water content snow than in the light and dry.

 

[jimk]

One day during my visit to Schweitzer I took my non-skiing wife on a chairlift ride up to the summit Sky House restaurant. It has a cafeteria section and a table-service section. Yet, I found the whole structure to be smallish, beautiful, and maybe even quaint compared to huge on-mountain lodges at some of the other Ikon and Epic resorts. Someday they'll probably have to triple it's size if Schweitzer keeps gaining in popularity.

We dined with friends in the table-service section and then strolled around for about an hour. The skies varied from cloudy to sunny and I was glad they cleared for much of our time at the summit. By the way, I thought the lunch cost was quite reasonable, not too dissimilar from prices at Applebee's.

Light snow fell and the view closed-in on our chairlift ride back down the hill.

There is a very nice scenic view point on the access road from the ski area at about the point where everything turns from white to green-blue.

View from base lodge bar, this one's for @tseeb .

There's actually a red ale in that glass. I forget which brand. A friend bought a pitcher of it that three of us shared.

 

[jimk]

About lake views, last year I wrote at length about the impressive views at Diamond Peak, NV. But there you see (up close) about 3 miles of Lake Tahoe. At Schweitzer you are looking at much of a 45 mile long lake, from a little further distance. Both are mind-blowingly beautiful.

About weary legs, I'm 71, had skied 6 out of 8 days, quite a bit off-piste using 107mm underfoot, and the last three days of my visit to Schweitzer was in somewhat heavy fresh snow. Schweitzer and PNW snow kicked my butt. That's the sign of a good mountain!

 

[Tony Crocker]

Schweitzer and PNW snow kicked my butt.

Snowbird kicks a lot of butts. My age related issues (mainly the suck wind breaks) are evident most often during Iron Blosam Week the last few years.

I'll speculate hat JimK is not seeing those effects so much at Snowbird because he's only skiing partial days in Utah but probably closer to full days at a destination way from his home mountain.