Schweitzer Mountain Gets Needed Lift Troubled Ski Resort May Have Buyer Soon; Quad Expected To Open Today

Four potential buyers are interested in taking over the financially ailing Schweitzer Mountain Ski Resort, which enters 1997 still without its biggest lift working.

Sandpoint attorney Ford Elsaesser, appointed as receiver of the debt-laden ski hill in November, said interest in the resort has been better than he expected.

“We have very serious buyers,” Elsaesser said. A deal could be struck to have the resort change hands from Sandpoint’s Brown family to a new owner within a few months, he said.

Prospects look good for the refitted Great Escape quad to begin moving skiers up the mountain today, said manager Tom Trulock Thursday.

The often-agonizing rebuild of the ski lift that started last fall has been slowed by parts deliveries and brutal weather conditions. A Dec. 15 target for reopening the lift proved to be too optimistic.

“I wish sometimes we had just tore the thing down and built a new one from scratch,” Trulock said. He and a crew of about 10 employees worked sometimes through the night to get the lift running by Christmas, but the mega-dump of snow this winter made construction a chore.

For example, Trulock had to plow the road to the lift some mornings to allow equipment to reach it, then have a groomer put the snow back because the road crossed a ski run. At night, the road had to be plowed again so the equipment could get out.

The refit of the Yan-series quad used mechanical systems from Austrian manufacturer Doppelmayr. Ski resorts around the country have torn out Yan-series lifts after small cracks were found in the grip mechanisms that keep chairs on the cables.

If the weather continues to be wind-free, final testing could allow skiers on the chairs, Trulock said. Howling winds the past week delayed final testing.

Not having the quad running during the holidays didn’t dent business much because the same winds and poor weather during last week made the mountain practically unskiable, Elsaesser said. “We’re hoping for a dynamite January.”

The Brown family filed for receivership in late October after amassing $27 million in debt. Through Pack River Management, the family owns the ski hill and the surrounding land. The ski resort is what has interested the four buyers, Elsaesser said.

Local business and tourism officials believe that Spokane’s Gooddale & Barbieri Cos. are among the interested buyers. President Don Barbieri said Thursday that the company’s policy is to neither confirm nor deny such a rumor. Barbieri is a frequent skier at Schweitzer and owns real estate on the mountain.

Elsaesser would not name the would-be buyers. He did, however, confirm that he had traveled to Telluride, Colo., in December. The small but affluent town is home to a destination ski resort run by Telluride Ski and Golf Co.

While the ownership drama plays out for the resort, management concentrates on preventing Schweitzer from losing more money. The quad, so called because it holds four skiers per chair, remains a big part of keeping the resort’s destination status.

Schweitzer has been lauded by ski magazines for its short lift lines. Without the quad, skiers can back up on the hill’s remaining five lifts on busy days.

The new Doppelmayr grips and systems are state-of-the-art, Trulock said. The resort hopes to have a building next to the base of the lift to store the detachable chairs by next year, which would reduce icing problems.

Estimated at around $1 million, the re-fit came in about 5 percent over budget, Elsaesser said.

Mating the Doppelmayr systems to the Yan-series towers presented a challenge for the Austrian engineers who oversaw the project.

“We hope to send Tom someplace warm when this is all over,” Elsaesser said. “It’s been awful hard.”

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