Area skiing: Venerable Wormington spans decades of Schweitzer’s history

Sam Worm- ington launched skiing at Schweitzer when he fired up Chair One as the resort’s first general manager on Dec. 4, 1963. He took the last ride on the chair in April this year. Today he’s first in line for the grand opening of the Basin Express, a new high-speed quad replacing the Riblet double that plodded along faithfully for 44 years.

Two chairs replace the original chair Wormington built. Today’s celebration gives him honors for the ceremonial first ride. The event is part of Schweitzer’s annual Day for Heather, a $10 ski day with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Sandpoint’s Community Cancer Center.

Hardcores were sorry to see the old workhorse put down. But the new pair of lifts addresses several old complaints. The Basin Express loads from the heart of the village between the Mill Building and the Quad. It’s no longer necessary to boot pack up the hill or ride the Quad and ski down for access to the south ridge.

The Basin Express unloads about 300 yards north of the old midway after a 4-minute ride. Convenient access and quick transport make it easier for beginners to bail on the bunny hill and expand their horizons on the wide-open gentle cruisers surrounding the terrain park.

Total ride time to the south ridge has also been cut. The new Lakeview Triple takes off from the old midway and climbs the remaining 700 feet of vertical to the top in 4 1/2 minutes. Chair One, if you were lucky to get a rare non-stop ride, took about 12 minutes.

Wormington was born in Canada in 1920, got his first pair of skis for a dollar and skied the backcountry around Kimberly, British Columbia, as a kid.

“I’ve been around, you know,” he said. “But the snow hasn’t changed. The skiing was just as good back then as it is now if you liked powder.”

At age 16, Wormington started clearing a slope below the old North Star mine with an ax, a crosscut saw and any friend he could talk into helping. Eventually he finished a run to the top, built a cabin at the base and founded the Kimberly Ski Club.

Wormington enlisted in the Canadian army during World War II. He landed at Normandy and spent his first winter away from the mountains fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war Cominco, operators of the North Star mine, hired Wormington to turn his fledgling ski club into the ski area known today as Kimberly.

In 1963, members of a group with a vision for Schweitzer came up to Kimberly and talked Wormington into starting from scratch once again to build their dream.

“Back then Sandpoint was just a little logging town,” he said. “They wanted to improve the economy, get the locals to go skiing, get the school kids to stick around and start a business instead of going to other places.”

Wormington showed up for work just after the road to the resort was finished. Back then it was a muddy slog. Construction of Chair One was under way. He supervised everything from clearing timber, building the lodge, installing power, hiring staff and marketing the resort.

In a matter of months Chair One was running and Wormington was greeting visitors in the $150,000 lodge designed by Spokane architect Grand Groesbeck. Lift tickets cost $2.50.

Wormington left Schweitzer in 1977 after building it into the signature North Idaho ski area. He then managed Mt. Spokane for 12 years and spent the remainder of his career building ski lifts throughout North America.

He hasn’t skied since his wife, Elsa, died, but Wormington still visits Schweitzer a few times a week with his alpine rescue dog, a Czechoslovakian shepherd named Astra. For years he had said Chair One’s 600 people-per-hour capacity wasn’t enough and should at least be doubled.

Today the Basin Express and Lakeview Triple tandem increase skier capacity to 3,200 people per hour. Wormington said he has been thinking about taking up skiing again to be on the mountain with his great-grandkids.