More of the Beautiful Inland Northwest

One of our favorite things to do here is go hiking. At the end of August we drove to Schweitzer Mountain Resort in Sandpoint, ID, which is about 1.5 hours from Spokane. It's a popular local ski resort in the winter and a hiking, biking, and horseback riding paradise in the summer. The summit sits at about 6,400' and the views are beautiful. We rode the chairlift to the top and then hiked down the Tea Kettle Nature Trail back to the village. You would generally think that hiking down a hill would be easy, but it really wasn't that simple. A staff member had told us that the trail was suitable for 7 year-olds. By the time we had finished our hike, we had decided that either the staff member was crazy or we were getting really old! Our knees were sore from holding back our bodies as we walked down the hill, or should I say mountain, and the terrain was a mix of very rocky areas, followed by areas with very loose soil. Nonetheless, we had a great time and would do it again. The beauty of the area is truly awesome.

The view from the summit at 6,400', with Lake Pend O'reille in the background

Our route to the top of the mountain. It's very strange to ride a chairlift when there is no snow on the ground. It's a totally different perspective.

We are standing about 1/3 of the way down the mountain, looking at the village. The end of the trail is way down there by the tennis court. The village sits at about 4,700', so we hiked down 1,700'. I suppose that explains the sore knees!

We bumped into these two as we were walking down the trail. They actually startled us, because we were walking through a dense area, looking down at the ground to avoid tripping on rocks, and I was talking about seeing bears!! The treed area opened up a bit and suddenly the deer were just there. They were busy munching on the huckleberries (in foreground of photo) and didn't seem phased by us at all.