Interior NW Trip: Jan 24-Feb 3 2023

[EC_expat27]

Following my challenges of getting up to the mountains of Lake Tahoe in December, I started researching skiing in the northwest beyond the Cascades, more so dreaming via the computer screen rather than planning a legitimate trip. However, with a few weeks away from work in late January on the horizon, aimless web surfing turned into focused planning as an opportunity presented itself that I simply could not let myself squander. I put together a spreadsheet and some maps, hopped on a plane back to Seattle, and started convincing myself the trip was a good idea. After a few days at home preparing, I set out on an exploratory tour of the interior Pacific Northwest, setting my sights on a litany of mountains in Washington, Idaho, and Montana. With a little bit of planning and lot of luck, I ended up having one of my most incredible ski experiences to date.

Little did I know, the night I returned to California, a single lapse of judgement would turn the rest of the season totally upside down. In the span of a few hours of getting off the plane, I would end up losing all of my ski gear and my backpack (computer/electronics/keys/etc.) in a car break-in, a brutal reality check after such an awesome trip. It took me a while to put all of the pieces back together, hence the long overdue report.


Day 1: 1/24/23- Stevens Pass, WA

Still on the fence about going through with the trip, I finished up my final packing and set out, heading east towards the Cascades. A few errands had ended up taking much longer than anticipated, leading me to depart the city a little before noon. Being a passholder at Stevens, the late arrival didn’t bother me too much, knowing I would still get a solid few hours in with much more skiing to come. Flakes were flying as I pulled into a quiet parking lot, and an even more deserted mountain awaited- making for a great afternoon of weekday skiing. Low clouds made skiing along the trees the preferred choice, and the snow showers continued the whole afternoon. With Stevens’ backside being quite scratchy a few days prior, I opted to stay on the front of the mountain, working my way looker’s right to left.

Around 3:30, I wrapped up a short but fun afternoon and headed back down to the parking lot. At this moment, I was faced with my final decision point- turn left and head west, back down US 2 towards home in Seattle, or turn right and head east, into the great unknown. I am extremely glad I decided to head east.

With about a four hour drive to Spokane, I set off, driving about 45 min before a brief stop in Leavenworth, WA to walk around and grab an early dinner. Leavenworth is about as close as you can get to the Alps in the US, as the entire town is built in Bavarian style.

After the obligatory bratwurst, I was off once again, blazing east across Washington state. After crossing the Columbia River in Wenatchee and driving through some of the thickest fog I have seen across the plains, the runway lights of Fairchild AFB welcomed me into Spokane Valley and civilization emerged from farm country. This would be my stopping point for the night, as Mt. Spokane was on tap for tomorrow.

 

[jasonwx]

This is great, can't wait for the next installment

 

[tirolski]

Too bad about yer car and the stuff.
Glad ya still got to go.

 

[EC_expat27]

Day 2: 1/25/23- Mt. Spokane, WA

Day two started with fog down in the valley by the hotel, leaving me wondering if the mountain would be socked in as well. The mountain is about a 45-minute drive from Spokane Valley, around half of which is on WA route 206, the long access road that dead ends at the lodge. The ski area is on roughly the top half of Mt. Spokane, requiring the access road to switchback its way up the lower elevations of the lone peak. Nearing the end of the road, patches of blue started poking through the clouds and upon arrival at the lodge, the sky opened completely, revealing a full inversion down in the valley below.

Mt. Spokane is considered the local hill by residents of its namesake city, but it skis significantly larger than one might expect of a mountain of this category. It has 2000’ of sustained vertical drop and quite the variety of terrain. The mountain consists of several different faces that cover just about every aspect of the peak, all of which are served by fixed grip chairs. The mountain has no snowmaking and relies on 100% natural snow, of which there was no shortage. Mt. Spokane's high base elevation also helps with its ability to preserve snow quality tremendously.

Scoring a $50 weekday ticket (paper ticket with a wicket none the less), I eagerly booted up in the cozy lodge. I spent my first runs on the front face enjoying the pristine groomers and deserted slopes. The snow surface was slowly softening in the morning sun, creating a dreamy surface that really allowed you to let your skis fly.

After exploring most of the runs here, I continued over towards chair 1, towards looker’s left. This chair served most of the expert terrain and reached the true summit, which was being kissed by the passing clouds. The trees were significantly more spread out here and caked with a thick coating of rime ice, opening up a broad snowfield loaded with dry, chalky snow. I did not venture too far towards the outer boundary skiing solo, so I mainly stayed within eyeshot of the chair. Nevertheless, there was plenty of fun to be had exploring the gnarled trees and wild terrain.

I could tell I was surrounded by a hardcore cast of regulars enjoying the midweek sun, mostly retirees joined by a contingent of young people, especially as the day waned and night skiing kicked off. I shared the vintage riblet double chairs with many who called Spokane home over the course of the day, and I was met with nothing but warm hospitality and a clear sense of pride in their mountain. Many talked about the local region and shared not-to-miss runs, but a highlight was having a local gentleman in his 80s be taken aback by my narrow race carvers (of 2019 vintage) and say “those are some old skis you have there!” He himself on a nice pair of wide all-mountain skis, which made the dichotomy even more amusing.

Another common theme shared by the locals was a fondness for the new Northwoods expansion on the backside, or west-facing, side of the mountain. About a year or two old, it had a new fixed-grip triple chair, a handful of wide blue cruisers, and a few narrow New England-style bump runs. The top third of this terrain was in the clouds, but fighting through the low visibility was beyond worth it for the awesome terrain below. This expansion added a lot of skiable terrain to the mountain and had the most traffic of any lift during the day. With terrain on both its east and west faces, you are able to follow the sun throughout the day here, allowing you to have good light well into the afternoon, even in January.

The last area I explored was called Hidden Treasure (aptly named since I had to ask a patroller for help finding it), located on the north face of Mt. Spokane. It has mostly steeper narrow trails with chalky, dry snow preserved by the shaded aspect. This side of the mountain had groves of perfectly spaced pine trees, making for some fantastic tree runs. Luckily, these beautiful pin-straight pines are a hallmark of the region and would be a common theme for most of the trip.

With the sunlight fading, I returned to the frontside for a few final laps before calling it quits as the lights were coming on for night skiing. As I returned to my car, I made sure to snap a photo of the ski patrol building, one of the more ornate ones I have seen.

Winding down the long access road, I made my way back towards US 2 and continued east, heading towards the lake town of Sandpoint, ID and Schweitzer Mountain.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

In the span of a few hours of getting off the plane, I would end up losing all of my ski gear and my backpack (computer/electronics/keys/etc.) in a car break-in

Condolences, that sucks. I always leave my work laptop in the car on ski trips and hope/pray that something similar doesn't happen to me.

 

[tirolski]

That there is the nicest ski patrol building in the whole wide world.

 

[EC_expat27]

Condolences, that sucks. I always leave my work laptop in the car on ski trips and hope/pray that something similar doesn't happen to me.

Thanks. It fortunately happened right as I got back to work, so the trip wasn't affected. It's just accepted as normal in the Bay Area, which is the saddest part.

 

[EC_expat27]

Day 3: 1/26/23- Schweitzer Mountain, ID

Day three really begins before day two even ends. Schweitzer was going to be the most expensive ticket of the trip by far (around $120 with military discount), and for this reason, I was still not yet sure if I was going to ski there. However, being the largest mountain in the region and having a solid reputation, I couldn’t pass it up and decided to bite the bullet. To offset the cost and add a bit of adventure, I elected to car camp, which the mountain allows in its lower parking lot.

Sandpoint looked like a cool town as I drove through that evening, although most things had quieted down for the night. The town, perforated by railroad tracks, serves as a major junction point for the BNSF Railway, as well as hosts a station for Amtrak’s Empire Builder. I grabbed a few final supplies and headed out of the town, still about twenty minutes from the resort. Like Mt. Spokane (and most mountains in this area), Schweitzer has a long access road- around six miles. The dozen or so steep switchbacks would have been more enjoyable during daylight hours, but I pressed on, finally arriving at the overnight lot to join a dozen or so campers.

The resort is a small town in its own right, evident by the full fire department and public works shops co-located in the overnight lot. As I heated up a late dinner on my Coleman stove, a small pickup marked “Public Safety” pulled alongside, and the officer welcomed me to the resort, offering his assistance should any situation arise during the night. I asked about the snow conditions, to which he replied, “to be honest, the mountain’s not in the best shape. It’s been a pretty dry January.” I smiled and thanked him for checking in, wondering if that could really be the case after skiing the great snow a few hours west. I finished up dinner, admired the stars, shuffled around the back of my car, and settled in my sleeping bag for the night.

Despite the modest sleeping accommodations, I slept decently well, waking to temps in upper 20s and bright but overcast skies. Firing up the stove once more, I cooked a quick breakfast, packed up the car, and continued up the access road another few miles to the base area. The road climbed passed neighborhoods of condos terraced into the hillside until arriving at a built-up but compact base area. It took a while to procure a ticket since a recent cyber attack had devastated the mountain’s web and IT systems, leaving one register and a long line of skiers. The outage also claimed the ticket printers, requiring the trusty ticket and wicket duo to be called out of retirement to save the day. I watched in amazement as most customers had no idea what to do with the foreign sticker and twisted piece of metal; already having a day to knock the rust off at Mt. Spokane, I gladly accepted another shot at trying to perfectly align and smooth the paper ticket.

I exited the lodge and was immediately met with a sea of thick, moist air that obscured just about everything beyond the lift base terminals a few hundred yards away. Hoping to get above the clouds like the previous day, I hopped on the lift, but to no avail- the fog only thickened with the increase in elevation. My first run was on the verge of terrifying, as I timidly worked my way down the foreign terrain, encountering near total whiteout a few times. I re-boarded the lift, bracing myself for what I figured would be a long day of challenging conditions; however, as I arrived at the top, a subtle wind shift opened a break in the clouds, eventually opening to a partly sunny sky. With the much-improved visibility, I started my tour of Schweitzer bowl, enjoying a broad sampling of runs off the Basin and Great Escape quads.

Schweitzer, the largest mountain in both Idaho and Washington, can be separated into two bowls- Schweitzer bowl on the front side, and Outback bowl over the adjacent ridge. For lack of better words, Schweitzer is best described as just being an incredibly fun and dynamic mountain. It has incredibly diverse terrain, from long cruisers to legit steeps, and it has substantial acreage, allowing you to travel across several unique areas.

I ventured over the ridge to the Outback bowl, revealing an expanse equally large as the already impressive Schweitzer Bowl. I started out on the Cedar Park quad, which covered the middle third of the bowl. This section had a variety of meandering blues with abundant opportunities to dip into the pods of pine trees that separated them. The Colburn triple climbed the final third out of the bowl and back up to the summit, attacking the precipitous Lakeside headwall head-on. The series of chutes that made up the bowl were full of light, chalky snow, and culminated with a runout along a small alpine lake back to the chair. A modest legion of snow ghosts provided the necessary wind break to preserve ideal conditions in the bowl. If this was bad snow according to the public safety officer, I couldn’t imagine what the mountain would be like on a “good snow” day.

The outermost reaches of the Outback bowl are reached by a long traverse out to a T-bar, which then climbed to a small-isolated knob- just high enough to continue along the ridgeline. I took a loop on the outermost run, paralleling the boundary of the resort to the very bottom of the bowl. I retraced my steps back to the summit, taking two lift rides back to the top and traversing out the north ridge, as Wayne’s Woods was too enticing to pass up. Like Lakeside Chute but gladed, it was one of the best runs of the day; however, patchy fog rolling back in was a sign to not push my luck, and I decided to avoid the more remote terrain for the rest of the day.

At the bottom of the bowl is an aptly named outpost with a small restaurant and bar- one of my favorite lunch spots of the trip. I ate my backpack lunch alongside members of the Out-of-Control ski club from Albany, who were visiting for a week on a club trip. It was their second-to-last day, and despite heavy fog early in the week, they talked very highly of their time at the resort. One could definitely use a longer trip like that to truly appreciate the size of the resort and experience all of the terrain.

I spend most of the remaining afternoon skiing off the Stella chair, the 6-pack that served looker’s left of the Outback. I had planned to ski more of the frontside terrain, but as fog engulfed the rest of the resort, Stella remained clear and sunny, so I elected to stay put and lap the sunny, long runs off the lift. At the end of the day, my stubbornness got the best of me, and I ventured up the frontside one last time to take a run on the Lakeview triple, a small pod serving a series of chutes on looker’s far left. I was greeted by the same pea soup fog I started the day with, so I forewent the chutes and followed the ridge down to wrap up a great day.

I hit the road and continued along US 2, traversing the Idaho panhandle and watching the landscape continue to become more rugged as I traveled further east. I could finally say I was on “mountain time” upon entering Montana, the scale of my trip finally sinking in as I shifted my car’s clock.

I reached Troy, MT, the first “town” into the state, where I would be spending the night. I enjoyed the sweet melodies of a mountain string band at the Silver Spur and chatted with friendly locals, bewildered that I chose to visit their little town. As I savored the moment, I also brimmed with excitement since the next day was one I had been anticipating since day one of planning this crazy trip.

 

[jasonwx]

great report!!!

 

[JTG]

Great trip report. One of these years is like to check out the area around Steven’s Pass (resort and backcountry).