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Sandpoint, ID (Summer, 2022) – With increased interest in outdoor adventures, mountain resorts are enhancing their amenities and activities, providing year-round opportunities for their guests. Schweitzer is no stranger to these endeavors and is dedicated to growing summer season offerings while improving the overall resort experience for winter guests.
This summer, visitors to Schweitzer can enjoy hiking, lift-accessed downhill mountain biking, on-site lodging, and varied dining options. Three new bike trails have been added to the resort’s mountain bike trail network. The first trail, built by Schweitzer’s in-house trail crew is an expert, partially machine-built trail, that is roughly a mile long with fun, natural rock features and drops as it descends. Trail building companies, Terraflow and Collaborative Trails, each created a new intermediate trail that ventures off Schweitzer’s existing Bear Grass trail. These are both machine-built trails and have great flow, fun berms, and jump options.
This past winter, Schweitzer opened Humbird, a contemporary boutique hotel in the heart of the existing village. The first summer season for new property is now underway and guests will be enraptured by the views of Schweitzer and Lake Pend Oreille. Humbird’s signature restaurant, Crow’s Bench, provides visitors a unique dining option with Alpine-inspired cuisine.
Summer also finds Schweitzer busy laying foundations for future ski seasons. Work has begun on a new road that will lead to “Base Camp,” a base area with approximately 1400 additional parking spaces and a new chairlift, expected to be in place for Winter 23/24. The new road will connect to Schweitzer Mountain Road from the existing roundabout and future developments in the area will include enhanced skier services and expanded beginner terrain with snowmaking, increasing Schweitzer’s overall skiable terrain to approximately 3,050 acres.
Employee housing continues to be an area of concern in many resort towns around the county. Schweitzer is working to find solutions and recently broke ground on a new employee housing project in Ponderay, ID. The 84-unit apartment complex will consist of pet friendly one, two, and three-bedroom units and feature efficient, flexible designs with modern amenities including washers and dryers as well as bike and ski storage. Occupancy is slated for Summer 2023. This is Schweitzer’s second project directly related to employee housing. In the summer of 2020, the resort acquired and renovated a former assisted living facility in Sandpoint, creating dormitory style housing for 16 seasonal and fulltime employees this past year.
In an industry dominated by consolidation, Schweitzer remains independently owned and proud of the improvements the resort is making under the guidance of an active and engaged board of directors. Schweitzer is unique in that it does not exist on Forest Service property and owns all 7,000 acres of land on which it operates.
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