Greetings, Schweitzer Family!

It’s been a little while since I’ve reached out to everyone with an update on how things are going.  All in all, we feel like the winter is going pretty well. Compared to some parts of the country, we are very lucky. A couple of areas that keep popping up in guest surveys and comments are parking and lift lines.

Parking at ski areas always seems to be a hot topic. Schweitzer has seen parking challenges even during a “normal” winter – but it usually only happens on peak days of over 5,000 visitors. Over the years, we’ve worked on strategies to alleviate the challenges, a big one has been the free SPOT bus service from the Red Barn. Traditionally, each SPOT bus would have the capacity to haul 60 passengers, 40 seated and 20 standing. This really helped in freeing up parking spots on the mountain and it’s been a great partnership.

Unfortunately, ridership on SPOT has seen a significant drop-off due to Covid. In a normal season, both front and back parking lots at the Red Barn, would fill. This season, the back lot has been empty even on peak days. SPOT also originally stated that they would no longer allow standing or ask anyone to share a seat with a non-family member in response to the pandemic. In the end, these measures weren’t needed since it seems there’s been limited demand on SPOT and they haven’t had to enforce the “No Standing” initiative. 

My take on this situation is that no-one, including staff, seem comfortable carpooling as a precaution of being exposed to Covid. I’ll admit too, that I have encouraged staff to refrain from carpooling this winter in an abundance of caution. Throw in the fact that the Selkirk Recreation District (SRD) Shuttle is not operating their free transportation for Schweitzer community residents this winter, and we now have loads more people driving up the mountain. All of these challenges have compounded the parking situation to the point that even on days that are less busy, we are seeing parking volume typically only seen on record setting days.

I can assure you that we are not seeing more visitors. We’ve capped weekend and holiday day tickets at 500 - 700 per day where traditionally we would sell 2500+ tickets per day during these periods.  As the season progresses and snow accumulates, we do gain several hundred parking spaces as we push snow over the banks and park vehicles literally in these new spaces. This helps but it’s still a challenge to find parking.

Another pinch point has been the length of our lift lines, or the perceived increased length of the lines. Among a myriad of items, the plan that was submitted and approved by the Panhandle Health District (PHD) prior to opening day included a strategy to add “ghost lanes” in an effort to provide lateral social distancing space. Implementing this reduced the size of our staging areas by 1/3. The lines may seem long, but typically they “look” long because of the ghost lanes and extended staging areas. Additionally, we’re not forcing/encouraging full groups on chairs and allowing guests to ride single or double. On our high-speed lifts, this can reduce our lift capacity, sometimes by 50%.  This can definitely add a wait to some of our chairs, but we look forward to next season when we won’t have to put these strategies in place and the weekend lines will feel again like midweek.

Adjusting to the Pandemic operationally has been challenging at best, but we just want to let you know that we are doing our best to try and mitigate the parking challenges and the increase in lift lines. We appreciate the help and support in this most unusual winter. Like everyone, I’m hopeful that life will begin to normalize, whatever that is, and we can let our guard down and begin to socialize. 

As it has become our mantra this season - Be kind. Be compassionate. Be flexible.

Tom Chasse
CEO & President