Snow-Starved Schweitzer Planning To Open Friday
Schweitzer Mountain Resort is $28 million in debt, in bankruptcy and for sale. But what worries resort workers and Sandpoint businesses right now isn’t the lack of cash.
It’s the lack of snow.
“Forget who owns it. Let’s get some dang snow up there. Without the snow, it’s not going to matter,” said Bill Roush, a manager at Connie’s Motor Inn and Cafe. He’s not so patiently waiting for skiers to fill hotel rooms and belly up in the restaurant and bar.
Resort workers and business owners are biting their nails and tightening their belts until the snow and skiers arrive.
Last week, Schweitzer needed another foot of snow to open. About 4 inches fell Monday. Even though Mother Nature isn’t expected to dump more flakes this week, resort personnel say they can scrounge up enough snow for a limited opening Friday.
They plan to operate the high-speed quad chairlift and open about eight ski runs.
“It’s very important for us and the community to get this darn place open,” said Schweitzer General Manager Peter Gillis. “We’ve got three days, and we are going to be doing some serious snow farming.”
Dump-truck loads of snow are being hauled from parking lots and roadsides to be scattered on sparsely coated slopes. Snow-making equipment has been used on Musical Chairs, a beginner run. Crews are tossing pine bows and plywood over wet spots that will be covered with the imported snow.
“I have allocated all the snow that will fall on my property to Schweitzer. They can have it if they want it,” said Whistle Stop Cafe owner John Klager.
Sandpoint businesses are starting to feel the pinch from lack of tourists, Klager said. And the holiday spirit must be dampened for the 400-plus resort employees who still have rent to pay and families to feed.
“That’s the hurt. We’ve got a lot of idle employees who have to make a living and put food on the table,” said Schweitzer’s mountain manager, Tom Trulock. “It’s tough on everybody. If we get some more snow, it will make life a lot easier for a lot of people.”
Schweitzer drives Sandpoint’s winter economy. The resort typically opens on Thanksgiving, but the hope now is to draw skiers for Christmas.
“We need skiers. It’s getting critical now because you don’t get those people back again,” said Ivano’s restaurant owner Jim Lippi.
Skiers go where there’s snow, he said. “Once you lose them, you lose them. They only have so much time to hit the slopes, and when they use up their time somewhere else, they are lost to us.”
Lippi’s winter business is about 35 percent off what he did last year, when snow was early and plentiful.
Schweitzer has been working with Coldwater Creek, a successful large mail-order catalog company in Sandpoint. Coldwater Creek needs temporary workers for the holidays, so Schweitzer employees were hired until the mountain opens.
Schweitzer employees have been worried about their jobs all year because of the resort’s legal morass.
Two family owners, Jean Brown and Bobbie Huguenin, placed the resort in bankruptcy last month. They want control of the mountain and are trying to stop a proposed sale to Harbor Properties, a Seattle firm.
Harbor owns Stevens Pass Ski Area near Skykomish, Wash., and Mission Ridge near Wenatchee. Harbor wants Schweitzer in its portfolio to market the three resorts together in the Northwest.
A court-appointed trustee has run Schweitzer for a year and arranged the sale to get the resort out of debt. The mountain needed a $750,000 line of credit from U.S. Bank to open this winter.
Now a judge must give permission to spend the line of credit because the resort was put in bankruptcy. U.S. Bank has authorized only the trustee to spend the money; if the family is reinstated as mountain managers, bank officials said, the bank will withdraw the credit. A hearing is scheduled Wednesday.
Regardless of what happens, Gillis said, Schweitzer will open Friday - “unless it rains hot water.”
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