PNWMountains

Did you know that the big lake you can see from Schweitzer on a clear day has its own lake monster? Lake Pend Oreille, spread out below the Selkirks, is home to the Pend Oreille Paddler, a mysterious creature said to surface as a long, dark shape moving with an undulating motion and a wide wake. Locals do not tell the story with fear, exactly. Over the decades it has become a piece of living heritage, retold on docks and beaches and passed along to every new visitor who asks what might be hiding in that deep, dark water.

Did you know Schweitzer has already seen its first snow of the season? The resort's own daily message reports the first official snow sighting on Saturday, October 10, with snow falling on and off through that weekend, and an Ikon Pass roundup released October 14 noted first flakes on Schweitzer with more snow on the way this week. Winter is officially on the radar, and the countdown is on: opening day is set for Friday, November 27, just 43 days from today.

Long before ski lifts climbed the Selkirks, timber built the towns below Schweitzer. The forests around Lake Pend Oreille held prized western white pine and cedar, and once the railroads arrived, that green wealth drew loggers, mill hands, and whole new communities to Bonner County. Sandpoint grew from about 300 people in 1900 to roughly 3,000 by 1906 and about 5,000 by 1908, and boosters of the day claimed it shipped more cedar poles than any other city in the United States.

Did you know the very first snow of the season can set a deadline? Schweitzer Mountain Resort is celebrating the first flakes that fell over the mountain this past weekend with its First Flakes Lodging Flash Sale, and today, Wednesday, October 14, is the last day to book it. The resort is offering 20 percent off winter lodging for stays from November 27, 2026 through April 11, 2027, with a two-night minimum, at properties including the Humbird, Selkirk Lodge, White Pine Lodge and 5 Needles.

Long before a highway hugged its shore, Lake Pend Oreille was the road into this country. In 1866 the Oregon Steam Navigation Company launched the steamer Mary Moody on the lake, and she became its first official mail carrier, helping travelers push north toward newly discovered gold fields. For years afterward, steamboats were how people, mail and supplies moved here, linking little landings around the lake and up the Clark Fork River, while the forested shoreline around present-day Sandpoint was still quiet and sparsely settled.

The conifer that breaks the rules. The western larch — tamarack to old-timers — is an evergreen that goes deciduous every fall, dropping its needles after turning them a brilliant gold. It's the largest of the larches, and in late September and October it sets the Selkirk high country ablaze with color.

Why does it drop its needles? Before shedding, the tree pulls nutrients back into storage — an adaptation that reduces snow damage to branches and protects against insects and fire. Come spring it flushes chartreuse-green new growth, the sign of late spring in the high country.

Before skis ever touched Schweitzer's slopes, the vast homeland of the Schitsu'umsh — the Coeur d'Alene Tribe — stretched across more than three and a half million acres of the Inland Northwest. It was a country of grass-covered hills, camas prairie, forested mountains, lakes, marshes, and rivers: from the southern end of Lake Pend Oreille in the north, along the Bitterroot Range to the east, down to the Palouse and the North Fork of the Clearwater River in the south, and westward to Steptoe Butte and just east of Spokane Falls.

Good Sunday morning from the hill above Schweitzer. If you are waking up with us at The Village Overlook, take a look outside first, because winter is knocking on the mountain's door. Snow showers are dusting the upper elevations this morning at 32 degrees, feeling closer to 21 in the wind. The KOTX radar map shows a real fall front sweeping through, with widespread precipitation echoes stretching from Colville and Spokane through Coeur d'Alene and right over Sandpoint. Down in town it is raining, 44 degrees, with northeast gusts up to 37 miles per hour.

October 10, 2026. Sandpoint wakes to 41 degrees and a sky that can't quite decide, with the National Weather Service giving us a 20 percent chance of showers after 11 a.m. and a mostly sunny afternoon high near 54. The KOTX radar is showing real shower activity this morning, with echo cells over the Colville highlands to the west and near the Canadian border to the north. Tonight is the interesting part: the snow level drops to 2,400 feet after midnight while temperatures fall to around 33, so the first dusting of white on Schweitzer's 6,400-foot summit is very much in play.