Our stop for the next few nights was Leavenworth, WA. Leavenworth is a cute little town that was more or less dying until the town decided a change was needed. The town has a Bavarian German theme. Here you can get bratwurst, bockwurst,, or knockwurst to your heart’s desire. Do you like German beer? They probably have your favorite here. The Christmas lights are pretty and usually stay up to mid-March. So, if you don’t like all the crowds in December at their lighting festival when this town swells from 8,000 to 50,000, come in January or February. The charm is still there.
We were in Leavenworth to ski Steven’s Pass, a ski area about 35 miles away. A little bit of a drive, but there is no lodging at the ski area and there aren’t many closer lodging options. Besides Leavenworth is really cute. We’d stay there again.
The parking for Stevens is not a long walk at all. They have lots on both sides of the freeway. On the busier days when those lots get full, they offer parking at a couple of places that are about 5 miles away. They run a parking shuttle on those days to take you back and forth. Brought your RV? they also have an RV parking lot where you can even get full hookups for $40/night.
We got to Steven’s Pass and were greeted by fog. Went over to the backside of the mountain and literally had difficulty seeing 10 feet in front of us. Made for interesting skiing as we didn’t know the mountain and were in a sense skiing blind.
Came back to front after one run as the visibility was better. They have good snow coverage and average over 400 inches a year. The snow was decent and finally with 100% of the mountain open were able to ski runs that had a steeper pitch. My favorite run of the day was Hoot ‘n’ Holler.
Steven’s uses the RFID technology to scan ski passes. If you’re not familiar with this technology you enter a gate. The machine scans the ticket in your pocket and lets you through the turnstile.Being the closest ski area to Seattle this really helps them move people up the mountain and avoid longer lift lines.
The next day we were on the move again, but we wanted to get in a couple hours of skiing. The mountain had gotten 5 inches of new snow overnight and they were supposed to have good visibility. Got there and the visibility was good. We went immediately to the backside again to see what we had skied the day before. Truly, it looks different when you can actually see where you’re going. The powder on the backside was great and we enjoyed the Gemini run.
Next up the Idaho panhandle.
Schweitzer Mountain is located in Sandpoint, ID, up in the Idaho Panhandle. It’s about an hour from Spokane or an hour from the Canadian border. This mountain is quite large and is the biggest ski resort in both Idaho and Washington. Schweitzer is a lot less well known than Sun Valley it’s neighbor in the Southern part of the state, it’s still a hidden gem.
The lifts are a fairly easy walk from the parking area. There is a $15 dollar charge for the closest lot. Not sure if they charge that only on weekends as we didn’t pay on Friday, only on Sunday. If your not staying in the ski village and don’t feel like driving up the ski road they offer a shuttle at the bottom for $3 round trip.
This mountain has a ski village at it’s base with tons of lodging options. However, the towns of Sandpoint and Ponderay are just at the bottom of the ski run road. We stayed in Hope, ID, which is a little further out, but we had a deal on a condo there. The condo was on the shores of Lad Pend Oreille. This lake is over 1,150 deep in places making it the 5th deepest lake the US.
We really liked this low key mountain. Again our goal was trying to stay below the fog. For the most part the snow was good and they are supposed to have a storm coming in this weekend. We enjoyed the runs off the Stella lift. This lift is a 6 pack where you get on the lift in a redesigned 19th century barn. Nice way to repurpose an old barn.
Will’s back had been bothering him and so he quit after lunch, while I took in a few more runs.
We were blocked out that Saturday and took the opportunity to rest Will’s back and catch a movie. Love these smaller towns I mean where else can you get a large popcorn, two drinks and a candy for 15 bucks?
Day two at Schweitzer was our best skiing day yet. The quote of the day was “ski under the fog”, but that was fairly easily accomplished by us skiing the back side of the mountain again. A storm had come through and provided us with another few inches of powder. Our favorite run of the day was a black diamond run called Revenge. The sun even managed to make an appearance for a few minutes.
