Sliding high

DOVER — Supporters of the local “Save the Sled Hill" campaign, rejoice: the sled hill has officially been saved.  

On Tuesday, Sandpoint nonprofit Kaniksu Land Trust purchased a 48-acre Dover property for $1.9 million. The move ensures a historic sledding hill enjoyed by residents for nearly a century will remain an asset to the community long into the future.  

“There are a lot of winter sports that cost a lot of money,” said KLT Executive Director Katie Cox. “To give all of our families and the people in our community the ability to go out and have a little bit of fun at very little cost is exciting to us.”  

The property housed Sandpoint’s local ski hill prior to Schweitzer’s 1963 opening, after which the landowner permitted the public to sled in the area at no cost.  

“It's quite a legacy,” said Regan Plumb, KLT’s conservation director. “They plowed a parking area and allowed the community to come for free for decades.”  

The hill persisted as a beloved site until the parcel went on the market in 2021, threatening public access. Community members sent out a call for help, and KLT and its supporters answered it.  

“It was the whole town that came together and said, ‘I grew up sledding on that sled hill, and now I take my grandkids up there, and what a loss that would be if it were gone forever,’” Plumb said.  

To buy KLT time to collect purchasing funds, a group of sympathetic donors acquired the land and leased it to KLT for $1 until the organization had enough money to own the property.   

According to Cox, there was competition for the land when it went on the market. “We would have lost it,” Cox said. “If we didn't have those angel donors, the property would have been lost to the community.” 

To raise the necessary funds, residents and businesses chipped in on the initiative, and in a full-circle moment, a donation of 50 historic ski lift chairs by Schweitzer and the subsequent auction gave the project the final nudge it needed.  

“It really pushed us over the edge,” Cox said of the donation.  

KLT announced in August 2023 it had raised enough money to buy the property; the recent arrival of a $600,000 Forest Service grant enabled the official transaction to take place Oct. 8.  

Going forward, KLT plans to ensure the land provides as much benefit to the community as possible. In addition to reopening the sledding area last January, KLT has begun hosting Kaniksu Folk School programs at the property’s “Big Red Shed,” and operates a small lumber mill to process windblown trees and sell wood to support its initiatives.  

In total, KLT raised $2.1 million in the “Save the Sled Hill” campaign; the $200,000 not used for the land purchase has gone toward safety improvements to the area. Pending receipt of a special use permit from Dover and prospective grant money, KLT plans to expand parking capacity by 50 spaces, stock a pond with trout for kids’ fishing, and create a few small campsites for three-season use.  

“One thing that we've found is that there’s very limited camping in and around this whole region,” Cox said. Cox added that KLT wants to create the sites to enable visitors to experience North Idaho, but also to give locals a chance to have “a little staycation.”  

KLT’s most immediate goal, however, is to create a pair of mixed-use trails that connect the property with the organization’s larger Pine Street Woods recreation area. The project aims to limit traffic on the Pine Street Woods access road, which according to Plumb, “becomes particularly hairy in the wintertime.”  

Local recreation groups Pend Oreille Pedalers and Sandpoint Nordic Club have lent labor to the task, as the trails are set to be used for winter biking and skiing when snow is on the ground.  

“We're just polishing them,” Cox said of the state of the trails. “They're both really amazing trails with beautiful viewpoints. Once you get up top on the sled hill, you can look across the valley and see Baldy Mountain and the Selkirk Range.”  

For the remaining Thursdays in October, from 4 to 6 p.m., KLT is recruiting volunteers to help finish the trails and prepare the sled hill for its snowy debut. Before long, though, the work will be over and the flakes will fall, and the next generation of local sledders will be able to speed down the community sled hill — a landmark in a town with a culture of making the most of wintertime. 

    Before becoming a community sled hill, the property was the site of a local ski hill that operated in the mid-20th century.
  

    KLT hopes to maximize the public benefit of the property; the organization's planned improvements include a trout pond for kids' fishing.