Skiing Schweitzer mountain - I learned to ski at Schweitzer in 1992. The bunny slope was not intimidating, and within 2 hours, my friends said, “Hey, you’re good enough to go to the top.” Off I went. Halfway up, the wind began to blow, and it started snicing (my word for a mix of snow and ice). We were being ‘glazed’. The chair was swaying and I wondered if this was normal, and if so, did they really think I was ready for THIS?

We got off the chair without my falling down, and immediately one of our companions ejected from his ski. Visibility at the top was only about 15 feet, and we dug in the snow for 30 minutes before giving up and taking the cat track back to the base lodge, our friend on one ski. There were times it was snowing so hard that we we had to literally feel our way down the cat track. Sometimes we thought we were moving……..and weren’t.

After 90 minutes of this, we saw the base lodge through the snow (the snice had turned to a blizzard) and headed for it. There were no people there, and I thought that was odd. As I walked through the door, I turned my head and my long hair had frozen to my coat and it came free with a bang and cracked ice fell on the floor. I was laughing like a madman, and I couldn’t wait to do it again! We found out the mountain had been closed for an hour because of wind and visibility, and we all got a comp pass to come and ski another day. I was hooked from day one!

On subsequent visits, I realized that what took us forever to go down could be skied in about 5 minutes. There are plenty of acres to spread out in. The Green Gables Inn has decent rooms for a good price. There’s a band that plays in the bar after hours, and the food is pretty good. I still have a great passion for Schweitzer with its varied terrain. It’s a big resort that will never be a destination resort, and that makes it superb for the discerning skier looking for a great place to play. Bonni