March 5, 2018 Schweitzer

Time for another ski trip, this time heading east. We left for Schweitzer on Sunday, March 4 at 11am, As we were driving along I-90 at North Bend, we saw a sign that said chains required for ALL vehicles except AWD. We know that our campervan is not AWD so I was not pleased with the sign, but then the next sign we saw said that the Pass was closed! Really not pleased with that. We waited for 2 hours in the camper - made lunch, had coffee, took a nap. When it finally opened the road was wet with no need for chains. It sounds like that changed later in the day when the Pass was closed again.

On Monday, bright and early, we picked up our free tickets with our Powder Alliance passes. There was about 3" of new powder on packed powder. The top of the mountain was in a cloud bank. The best skiing was off the Basin quad near the trees. After a few runs there it was over the top to the Stella 6-seat lift. Skiing powder with a few locals and no crowds. The top of Snow Ghost lift was also in the clouds. We skiied for a few hours mainly off Basin, Stella, and Great Express Quad. A nice day and the perfect way to start our trip.