Saturday Hit the Slopes Day (Sat, Dec 6) As always, I invite you to email me at Joseph.Spencer@AvoyaTravel or call me at 800-309-6773 with any questions about destinations included in my posts or your own trips youre planning. Each Saturday, I will feature vacations with a seasonal sports theme. Winter is the time most of us wax up our skis or get out our snowboards and tear up some powder. However, the big name resorts can get kind of crowded, so the secret that locals wont tell you about is that you want to hit emerging ski towns with great mountains and more reasonably priced accommodations and lift prices. This next recommendation is for non-extreme skiers and boarders seeking the famed tree skiing of the Selkirks without the trip to Canada - Sandpoint, Idaho. Deep in the Idaho panhandle, 60 miles shy of the Canadian border, the backwoods logging town of Sandpoint has been transformed into a ski town and a bohemian artists haven of wineries and sushi bars. Sitting on the shore of the Tahoe-like Lake Pend Oreille and backed by the Selkirk Mountains, this eclectic town of 7,365 enjoys one of the most beautiful settings in the American West. It may be remote, but it’s also only 90 minutes from Spokane’s international airport, and Amtrak runs right through town. Though the last 15 years have seen golf courses and condos sprout up like mushrooms after a Pacific Northwest rain, the town (and its ski slopes) never feel crowded. It may no longer be undiscovered, but it’s still undervisited. Eleven miles north of town, Schweitzer Mountain Resort sprawls across 2,900 acres and offers some of the best lift-accessed backcountry in the Rockies. The ski area itself is a non-extreme skiers dream, with wide ribbons of corduroy and unending glades draped across its three peaks. Known for some of the country’s best tree skiing, Schweitzer is on private land—unlike most ski areas, which lease their slopes from the U.S. Forest Service—and can thin trees to optimize the terrain. On clear days, spectacular mountaintop views reach into three states and British Columbia, though it can be hard to take your eyes off the radiant blue of Pend Oreille. The resort’s high point of 6,389 feet is lower than most western mountains (though it still averages 300 inches of snow per year), which means visitors will find plenty of oxygen to gulp down along with their vertical. If you’re still hungry for more, Selkirk Powder Company has its lodge at the top of the Great Escape Quad and offers cat skiing runs through the glades and old-growth forests on the resort’s backside. https://youtube/watch?v=jMez1kLqz-I
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 07:12:40 +0000
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