Northwest Magazines

Regional Travel Guide - 49° North, Washington

Snow Whimsy at 49°

49° - It’s a downright fun place to ski.

When the snow gods dump their annual 301 inches on Washington's 49° North Mountain Resort, they also sprinkle whimsy. For this day-use only ski resort is no ordinary ski hill: It permeates with personality to paste a smile on your face.

Locals call the resort simply "49." With an intimate hometown feel, it's a place where even strangers chit-chat over mochas in the lodge. Located midway between Newport and Chewelah, the resort has just seen its infamous snake-curved access road straightened - a wide, shouldered, and guard-railed highway usurping its narrow steep drop-offs. Although cars can speed to the ski area faster now, skiing takes on a pleasant pace. Conventional lifts allow time for muscle recovery as well as a real conversation.

Clustered around 5774-foot Chewelah Peak, its runs pry more skiing out of 2325 acres than many larger resorts. Six lifts plummet skiers onto gliding ridges—one a 2.5-mile sweeping tour below Angel Peak. As steeps alternate with rollers, my skis float over undulations with a joy that you only get skiing a mountain with character. No bulldozing every blemish into a monotone-angled pitch here. Instead, skiers howl with delight through natural dips, bowls, banks, and turns.

"This whole mountain is playful," quips my ski buddy Lou Albershardt, as she clangs a bell hanging from a limb with her ski pole. A ski hill with a sense of humor, 49 hides quirky amusements amid its firs. Peer closely into the forest: Birdhouses with ski pole roosts beckon winter inhabitants, and comical faces of the Seven Deadly Sins lurk in Upper Cy's Glades.

Last winter, skiers and snowboarders got a sneak peek at the resort's new 450-acre Sunrise Basin where sustained fall line cruisers converge into a bowl. With the basin's new fixed-grip quad installed this past summer and fall, the protracted cat track and uphill hike back to the lodge after each run are history. Instead, you can cycle through three new runs peeling off Silver Ridge and six new ones off Huckleberry Ridge and then egress up 1470 feet of vertical to Chewelah Peak's summit, opting for a direct run back to the lodge or dawdling in the terrain park.

Shunning the glitz of big resorts, 49 is a warm, friendly place. With its circa 1970 lodge abuzz with laughing skiers and riders, the resort may be a bit retro, but its personality comes out at the seams. As Albershardt says, "It’s a downright fun place to ski."

If You Go

From Spokane, drive 48 miles north on Hwy 395 to Chewelah. Turn east on Main which turns into Flowery Trail Road and drive 10 miles to 49.

49 is open Fridays through Tuesdays and seven days a week over Christmas holidays. Kids 6 and under can ski for $5, adults pay $40 on weekends and youths ages 7 to 17 $33. Weekdays run with cheaper rates: adults $34, youths $31. The resort also has complete skier services: rentals, lessons, daycare, and a restaurant. (866-376-4949; www.ski49n.com)

Northwest Travel Magazine January/February 2007

Updated February 11, 2008