If you haven’t been to Schweitzer in the past 6 months, you’re going to be blown away by the work being done in the village. We’re in the final phase of construction on our new Humbird hotel and Crow’s Bench restaurant and we’ve also broken ground on a 26-unit addition to the White Pine lodge, next to Pucci’s Pub. It’s impressive to say the least and I’m blown away with how the new construction frames the village so well already.

We’ve been prepping the mountain for the coming season and we’re really looking forward to being able to grab a beer and a brat on the slopes at our new food & beverage yurt, the Rowdy Grouse, located near the top of No Joke and Revenge.  The T-bar has also been updated with a new haul rope and T-boxes and we are waiting on the delivery of new chairs for Stella. 

One big change to our on-mountain experience will be that we are going to be using radio frequency ID (RFID) cards with turnstiles at the lifts this winter. These will help our passholders and guests head straight to the lifts and be able reload lift tickets online. This means that we’ll all get to lift line less, ski more, and find those powder stashes that much quicker.

We know some of our passholders have been anxious to get their physical pass and we are in the process of sending them out. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we were hit with some unforeseen supply chain issues. Those have been resolved and we are mailing out passes now so everyone should have their pass in hand for opening day. 

One thing we are going to do to relieve some of the early morning lines at the bottom of Musical Chairs this winter is to begin loading that lift at 8:00 a.m. on weekends and other peak days so people can get up to the village. The ski run will remain closed until 8:30am, as usual, so it doesn’t mean more early warm up laps, just extra time for condo owners and Fall Line lot users to get up to the village.

We’ve also increased the number of parking spaces in our overflow lot at the Fire Station. We’ve added an additional 150 spaces there and with this being a S.P.O.T. bus pick up and drop off area, we hope this’ll help with access straight to the village via that free public transportation link. As we’ve messaged earlier this summer, there will no longer be dedicated parking for ATVs/UTVs.  This winter, ATVs/UTVs will be asked to follow the same protocol as any other vehicle arriving at the resort. We realize parking is a concern for our guests and want you to know that we have much bigger plans taking shape for the future.

Overall, a few changes for us to adapt to this winter, but they all put us on a great path to improve on an already amazing and unique Schweitzer experience.

Thanks for your flexibility as we head into the season. Feels good to be approaching winter in as “normal” a way as we can. I’m sure you are as anxious as I am to get out on the slopes.

Tom Chasse
Schweitzer CEO & President