Welcome to mid-October in the panhandle. The lifts at Schweitzer are quiet — summer operations have wrapped, and the mountain is resting up for a projected opening on November 27 — but town life in Sandpoint, Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene, and Bonners Ferry is anything but quiet. Here is the week ahead, ski-flavored highlights first.
Happy Monday, mountain friends — and cover those tomato plants, because the season's first widespread frost is on the way. The KOTX radar lit up this morning with a band of rain sweeping across the Inland Northwest, echoes stretching from the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene area north toward Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry. Behind it comes a sharp, clear night: the National Weather Service is calling for widespread frost after 1 a.m., with lows around 28 degrees in Sandpoint and 27 up at Schweitzer.